Prodigals
by Laura Harkness
Summary: Ten leaves Rose, Jack leaves Torchwood, and both end up in the middle of an interstellar war. Who can save them? Will Jack ever get over The Doctor? Will Ten go back to Rose? The surprising answers to these & other burning questions are revealed within!
1. Chapter 1

**PRODIGALS**

**Standalone but follows my story 'Vengeance'**

**Disclaimer: **Inspired by, dedicated to and in the greatest respect of Doctor Who and Torchwood. Admittedly with overt and intentional allusions to Stargate (my first Jack), Star Wars and the Star Treks. May they all live on forever in our imaginations.

"_And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.  
It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."  
Luke 15  
31-32_

**PREVIOUSLY ON...**

The two stood silently for a time, each lost in his thoughts.

"Jack, it's time for us to leave."

"Yeah, I know."

There was another long pause.

"Doctor, aren't you going to ask me to come with you?"

"No."

"Funny, because I would've told you yes."

"I know. That's why I didn't ask."

The Doctor walked away, leaving Jack alone beneath the silent canopy of stars.

**PROLOGUE**

Jack Harkness was on a bender.

He had been drinking, drunk actually, not for twelve or twenty-four hours, or even thirty-six or forty-eight hours…

He'd been drinking for five solid weeks.

That's five solid _earth_ weeks. Not that he was on the planet Earth at the moment. In fact, he had no idea where the hell he was, other than in a crummy, mostly empty bar on some crummy, mostly desolate world.

He'd long since put himself on auto-pilot. Auto-pilot took reasonably good care of Jack and knew enough to understand that it had to keep him moving, just in case, and the chances of this were very remote – increasingly remote as time progressed – someone or some_thing_ attempted to track him down. And heaven help anyone who managed to do that, because auto-pilot was obstinate, antagonistic, rude, unfriendly – violent, even – and at least at this moment in time neither auto-pilot nor Jack craved companionship.

Not that this had always been the case. There'd been times during those inebriated five weeks that Jack had derived a modicum of comfort from some individual or another. The sex, and let's be honest, that's all it was – there was no love involved – tended to be impersonal and fierce. A few of the times the sex had involved payment being made by one partner or the other; the direction of the payment didn't matter – Jack wasn't proud, he'd buy or sell. Other times it was simply the chance encounter of two horny strangers. It satisfied some base need inside him that Jack had stopped thinking about.

But more recently, that most primal of needs had dissipated, along with some of the other more human behaviors and qualities of the Captain. For example, he no longer needed to be clean or well-groomed. He no longer needed to use _the facilities_; hell, he'd just stumble out the door and pee against a wall. He no longer felt the need to communicate or be pleasant or even civil. He went through the minimal motions necessary to obtain what he required, which was a liquid intoxicant of one type or another that would anesthetize his brain and make him forget… forget something or another that he'd apparently pretty much by that point totally forgotten, at least as long as he didn't think too much.

It was slightly strange if you took the time to reflect on it – most "civilized" (and please take that word with a grain of salt) planets possessed establishments where the inhabitants, or visitors like Jack, could drink themselves into oblivion in the company of others who wished to do likewise. It was one of the universal constants.

Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Thousands and thousands of inhabited planets – thousands and thousands of incredibly diverse races and cultures – having one thing… at least one thing in common: the desire to get fall-down, stupefied, shit-faced, stinking, drunk.

So Jack was in good company; and at present in more good company than he probably wanted as he hunched over his glass at the bar and heard a somewhat feminine voice behind him breathe "Can I join you?"

"What?" he growled. "Does it look like I'm falling apart and need to be put back together? _Go. Away._"

There was soft rustling as whoever it was left, and he took another slug of… of whatever it was he was drinking. It burned as it went down and made his eyes water and his heart flutter. That was quite good enough for him. He finished off the glass and slammed it down on the bar; his signal for a refill – no communication required, which was exactly the way he liked it.

The bartender, a robot in this case, glided over and swapped Jack's old glass for a fresh one – hey, this was a classy place: you got a clean (more or less) glass when you refreshed your drink. _Way_ classier than some of the other drinking establishments he'd recently patronized. The thought made the auto-pilot's warning lights start to blink red. Jack had been sitting there in that particular joint for a while now, had been parked on that god-forsaken planet for perhaps too long, and auto-pilot was starting to get edgy. It was probably time to leave.

Jack reached into his coat pocket rooting for payment; it was time to scoot. Now, that is another thing all those establishments serving all those civilizations on all those worlds have in common – the luxury of drinking oneself into oblivion was never free…

It was a different voice coming from behind him _this_ time.

"Here, I'll take care of that for you, and buy you another if you want."

Jack didn't look up but shook his head and hissed, "Leave me. I want to be alone."

A hand slapped some coins on the bar next to him. The unwelcome intrusion pissed off both the Captain and the auto-pilot. Inside his pocket Jack's fingers tightened into a ball as he got himself ready for yet another barroom brawl.

'God damn it,' he asked himself just before he stood up. 'How had it come to this?'

Too late: Jack looked up just in time to see a fist traveling at high speed toward his face.

**ONE**

And how _had_ it come to "this"?

Jack Harkness had stood alone in the dark on the roof of the Millennium Centre and unraveled.

Abandoned and bereft once again – a huge, gaping hole in his heart, _in his soul_, that could not be filled by any one person, by any one-hundred persons, except for the one that had just walked away from him.

It always happened… it always _fucking_ happened: the crushing, implacable, numbing loneliness. But for some reason this time it felt worse. _Way_ worse. He felt more isolated, more deserted, more rejected.

Through tear-filled eyes he looked frantically at the heavens. "Doctor?" he whispered. But Jack knew beyond any doubt that the Time Lord was already long gone.

He stood for hours, not feeling the cold, not feeling the wind, not feeling the occasional biting sleet as rain clouds raced overhead.

What he _did_ feel was that he'd been mined for blood and sweat too many times. He felt like a barely animate fossil, frozen and petrified; and he felt like a ghost, haunting this place, Torchwood, that for so long had been his loci of comfort and safety – his home…

"Thank you," The Doctor had once said to him.

"Anytime," Jack had responded. Yes… anytime, but what about the time _after_ the anytime?

He grieved over everything he had lost. He grieved over everything that had become unobtainable. He grieved over everything that he would never even know he was missing. He grieved over the injustice and unfairness of existence; and he grieved over the pure, unadulterated, relentless burden of life.

The Doctor was just an example, a symbol of the things Jack wanted yet could not have. He yearned, he hurt, and he ached for the Time Lord – to have the hole in his existence filled by the man from Gallifrey. But The Doctor was just one of many possible palliatives, and perhaps not even the most profound. Jack craved a normal life; a normal job with normal responsibilities. He yearned for normal dreams and normal fears. He hungered for someone to love him and occasionally take care of him. He longed to be surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He desperately desired to be content and happy. He wanted to live; and he wanted to die.

God but he wanted to die.

And in his overwhelming grief he did not hear…

With a stab of alarm he suddenly realized he was not alone.

"Jack, what's going on?"

It was Wil. Of all of them, of course, it would fucking have to be Wil…

He ignored her, fully realizing that in all probability it would not make her go away.

"Are you okay?"

Pause.

"Jack, what is happening?"

Pause.

"What are you doing out here?"

He turned to face her but did not meet her eyes.

For a moment he wanted to lash out, to strike her. Later he would think of that desire as folly – as evidence of his madness – because in hand-to-hand she could wallop him to hell and back; probably with one arm tied behind her back.

Nonetheless, he tensed his hands, and the rest of his body tensed, too, but instead… instead… he ever so slowly moved his right hand to the leather strap on his left wrist, and just before he touched the button, just before he disappeared, he answered bitterly, "I want to be alone."


	2. Chapter 2

**PRODIGALS**

**TWO**

Cold water was being flicked cruelly across Jack's face. It was _exceedingly_ uncomfortable. Combined with the headache, which he fuzzily surmised was due to a hellacious hangover, the inside of his mouth, which tasted and felt like rancid cotton, the pain in his jaw where he'd been clobbered, and his all-consuming need to further inundate himself with alcohol or any other vaguely similar intoxicant, he was pretty damn miserable.

"Jack, Jack, Jack." An overly loud and grating voice was pulsing against his eardrums. "How low you have sunk. Have you hit rock bottom yet?"

_Flick_. The water stung the skin on his face. Jack squeezed his eyes shut more tightly and tried very hard not to barf; but he then decided 'what the hell' and gave up, making even more of a horrid mess of himself.

"Ew," the voice said, "that's disgusting! You know, you always bitched that the Time Agency teamed us up because _I_ needed special care and feeding, but did you know they had fed me the exact same damned line about _you_? That it was my duty, along with all the other crap I did as part of my normal day job, to be your babysitter and watch after you? Crikey, Jack, you never made it easy, but this time you've really turned into a pain in the ass."

_Flick_. Well, actually, not so much a "flick" this time. This time it was more like a half glass of icy cold water thrown into his face – along with a couple of decently sized ice cubes…

Jack opened one of his eyes just the tiniest of slits and saw a dark haired man with a devilish countenance standing above him.

"Hello Jack."

"Hello John."

"Nice of you to rejoin the living."

Jack groaned and retched again.

"Would you mind not doing that? It's really revolting."

"Oh yeah," Jack croaked. "Like you've never done anything repulsive yourself."

"Are we talking about me? I didn't think we were talking about me…"

Jack closed his eye and let his head fall forward. But at the same time he was surreptitiously testing the bonds that held his arms, legs, and torso to the chair.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but the ropes are pretty secure; I've a lot of experience tying you up and I don't think you're going anywhere any time soon."

Fingers grabbed his hair, but not as painfully as they might have, and forced Jack's face upwards.

"You could at least have the common decency to look at me while I'm speaking to you."

Jack opened his eyes. He was in a dimly lit room, which intentionally or not was a blessing because of his ghastly headache. It appeared that the two of them were alone. Unbelievably John Hart was wearing a suit and a tie. He looked… he looked good. There was a small stirring inside Jack. Through his haze he could tell that John Hart _smelled_ good, too… like evergreens on a cold morning just after the rain. It was a curiously invigorating scent.

"You're wearing a suit," Jack commented, stupidly stating the obvious despite himself.

The smallest of smiles graced John's lips. "I wanted to look nice for you."

"Hah," was Jack's snide response, but he managed a small smile in return.

"You didn't answer my question, Jack."

"What question?"

"Have you hit rock bottom yet?"

Jack was silent for a moment and then slowly shook his head. He wasn't finished as long as he could still remember… He'd been done no favors here today.

"No? That's a pity, Jack..."

"What? Why? How did you find me? Did my team send you after me?"

"Ah, so many questions. Okay, working in reverse order: last is first. No, your pathetic little team of do-gooders didn't send me after you. How could they have? They can barely find their own arseholes; much less locate me to send after anyone. As for finding you… I've been watching you, Captain Harkness. I've never stopped watching you, _ever_."

There was something sinister in that, something ominous. Jack calmed his breathing and listened.

"Then there's why. Well… no one ever leaves the Time Agency. Not really. The only true way out is death and we know for _you_ death is not necessarily a trivial matter. You can run but you can't hide, at least not from them."

To his great surprise Jack abruptly realized his brain was starting to fire on all cylinders. His craving for oblivion notwithstanding, he was beginning to feel perhaps just a little bit better. A little bit more human. _Damn it, I've been drugged_.

"And when you're needed," John's eyes flashed, "the call must be answered. It seems you're – we're – needed, Jack."

"Hmph," Jack remarked.

John grinned, looking like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. "And last, but not least, still working backwards, 'What?'"

"What 'what'?" Jack shook his head confusedly.

"'What?' That was your first question. You know, as in: what now? Or: what next? Or: what's new? Or: What. Do. You. _Want?_"

John paused, waiting expectantly.

"Uh, well," said Jack finally catching on. "I could use a shower and some clean clothes."

"I think I may be able to accommodate you there." John leaned over, picked up a large bucket and liberated its contents: a great deal of ice cold water. Thereby totally drenching an unsuspecting and now thoroughly miserable Jack Harkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**PRODIGALS**

**THREE**

Eventually John untied Jack, handed him a towel, and provided him with clean clothes and something bland to eat.

The clothing – a pair of khakis, a dark blue button-down shirt, and a black leather jacket – fit Jack perfectly; the Captain had expected no less of his erstwhile partner.

But his weapons, even the most covert and meticulously hidden, along with his wristband, were nowhere to be seen.

The two men sat across a table from each other while Jack sipped warm soup from a mug and slowly and deliberately munched on a piece of plain bread.

"What happened to you, Jack?"

"What do you mean? I thought you've been 'watching' me."

"Well, I can't see inside your bloody head now, can I Jack? I do know you really well, but I can't read your thoughts."

Jack considered carefully for a moment, took another bite of bread and chewed it unhurriedly, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I think my heart is broken."

John, usually so quick with the sarcastic remark, leaned back in his chair and scrutinized the other man sympathetically.

"Ah, that precious Doctor of yours."

"Maybe."

"When are you ever going to let me meet him?"

Jack nearly choked on the bread. "Never!"

"Now is that fair? Or are you afraid I might steal him away from you?"

Jack's eyes flashed murder.

John raised his hands, palms outward. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Touchy subject – I'll keep that in mind. Sheesh." Then he became serious. Again there was this strange out of character look of concern on his face. "What did he do to you, Jack?"

Jack paused again and swallowed before answering. "He left me."

John tried his best to stifle a laugh. "He _left_ you?"

"He abandoned me."

"Yep, there's a lot of that going around these days," John responded perhaps a little too pointedly.

"I never abandoned you."

John scoffed.

"I didn't. I didn't _abandon_ you, John. I just didn't agree with what you were doing or where you were going with your life."

"Smelled like being dumped to me."

"Oh, I _so_ did not dump you…."

"You turned around and walked away from me, without another word. Sound familiar?"

_That_ hurt. And John _had_ been watching.

"It's not the same. I loved him. Love him…"

A dismal look of disbelief mixed with sadness crossed John's face.

"Jack," he said softly, but then couldn't think of anything else to say. _How could you believe I don't love you?_

The subject needed to be changed and conveniently Jack did it for him.

"What do you want from me?"


	4. Chapter 4

**PRODIGALS**

**FOUR**

Rose was sobbing.

"Oh, please don't cry," he said to her. He did not reach out to offer comfort.

She blinked unbelievingly and shook her head.

"How can you expect me to not cry when you're telling me that you're leaving me?"

"You mustn't take this personally… it's... it's not you, it's me. Oh God, I hate how that sounded. Can I erase it and start over again?"

Grim-faced, The Doctor was rubbing his eyes and mussing his hair – a sure sign of exasperation.

It had been a very hard couple of weeks.

As advertised, they'd left Torchwood, Cardiff and the Earth. They bopped around rather aimlessly for awhile and then Rose asked to go back to the planet with the adorable "hamsters", just to pay them a visit. The Doctor graciously consented. Rose had a secret agenda, though, which of course _he_ knew, and more than likely _she_ knew that_ he_ knew… but, anyway, she'd had in the back of her mind the idea of capturing a couple of the small, furry animals and bringing them back to the TARDIS as pets.

But as she lay out in the tall grass, under a warm sun, snuggling one of the critters below her chin and considering the plan further, she started to think maybe it was not the _right_ thing to do. To uproot an innocent little creature from its home so that she could derive some type of strange satisfaction or maternal pleasure from it didn't feel correct, didn't sit well. And as time passed, it seemed less and less acceptable until she finally decided it had been a harebrained idea.

The Doctor, agreeing with her in secret, was relieved.

And he was proud of her for discarding the scheme so gracefully. He knew it had been hard for her to let go of it.

"Maybe we should go back to Earth," he suggested, "and find you something to have on the TARDIS, something for you to care for, that is if you feel you need something other than me to take care of?"

He smiled brilliantly at her.

"Really?" her face had lit up beautifully at the suggestion; and he loved it, loved seeing her suddenly so excited and happy. "You would allow me to do that?"

He nodded. "Perhaps we should consult with Wil first, ask her if she has any advice about 'animal companions'?"

Rose nodded back enthusiastically. "That would be wonderful!"

And that's when they found out about Jack.

Wil was terribly upset; inconsolable, actually. She did not want to talk about pets. She only wanted to talk about Jack. Specifically, she wanted to talk about finding Jack. She wanted to talk about bringing Jack home.

Snap: it had been too much for her, first tragically losing her sister, and then, in front of her very own eyes, losing Jack Harkness.

The Doctor refused to help, eventually refused to even listen to her; Wil disappeared into the bowels of Torchwood, fuming.

The same nightmarish scenario replayed itself numerous times, with different participants reiterating Wil's plea. Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen had all tried their best, individually and in groups, to convince The Doctor to take some sort of action. Ianto nearly succeeded. The pitiable man was a physical and emotional wreck.

"He'd do it for you," Ianto pleaded with the Time Lord, desperately playing his last card.

"No he wouldn't," The Doctor snapped at him, eyes blazing.

Poor Ianto slinked away; Rose was furious with the Time Lord.

"Jack is your best friend!" she argued.

He pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets and paced a few steps away from her.

"He's a grown-up and he left of his own free will. I will _not_ go chasing after him."

"But, Doctor…"

"Listen to me. He left. He clearly wanted to leave. He told Wil that he wanted to be alone. How much more unambiguously could he have said it, shown it, asked for it?"

He whirled around, facing Rose. His voice softened but his eyes still sparked.

"And you know what? I think I know exactly what he felt like…"

Rose gasped in shock and incredulity.

"I'm thinking…" he said, shaking his head as if to organize his thoughts and knock them out more coherently. "I'm thinking that I maybe feel that way, too."

He _had_ been thinking about it, a lot. It had been a constant topic of thought, one thread among many continually running through his mind since he'd left Jack standing on the roof of the Millennium Centre. One of numerous ruminations, to be sure, but almost always at the forefront; it was as if once the idea had been planted he could not rid himself of it. Pernicious, weedy, thing… It had taken root. It had taken hold of him and spread.

It actually didn't surprise The Doctor that the two of them, Jack and he, had come to the same conclusion, at roughly the same time. He'd always known there was something indefinable and extraordinary that linked them together; something incomprehensible, to be sure, but something nonetheless that determinedly led them on similar, often intersecting, paths.

And so Rose was sobbing, and The Doctor was resisting the urge to envelop her in his arms. He knew that doing so would only make the situation worse.

"Let me try again. Rose, I am not leaving you. I could never leave you, not forever. But I need some time by myself."

"Time? How much time?" There was abject fear in her eyes. 'Time' for him had a totally different quality of perception and reality than it did for her.

"I don't know… I can't tell you anything other than only as much time as I need."

It felt odd to him, talking about_ his_ needs. It didn't feel quite correct. It felt foreign. It confused him and seemed unnatural, bizarre. What were _his_ needs compared to the needs of others? Compared to Rose's needs?

As those thoughts and concerns played visibly across his face Rose saw them, and suddenly she understood.

With a final shuddering hiccup she willed herself to stop crying.

As he had not reached out to her, she did not reach out to him; although she ached to do so.

"Then leave me here and go. Come back for me if you're ready, when you're ready… I'll be waiting."

A screaming, panicked part of her brain couldn't believe she was speaking those words. It was kicking, scratching and biting in horror and in fear. She pressed her fingernails into the palms of her hands and repressed it.

"Really?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "You'd do that for me?"

She nodded resolutely; afraid if she spoke, or even breathed, her true feelings of horror and despair would come spewing out uncontrollably.

"Right," he looked down at the ground for a beat and then looked back up at her. "Right. Okay." He turned and walked away, but as he left he murmured two final words to her, words that she could barely hear, but hear them she did.

"Thank you," he said.

"It's okay," she whispered, but only long after he was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**PRODIGALS**

**FIVE**

"And what do you mean 'we're needed'? I thought you told me the Time Agency was disbanded?"

"Jack, stop thinking so bloody linearly – if anyone should know better than that, it's you!"

Jack groaned and impatiently flashed his eyes at John. As his physical state improved and his mental acuity increased, his level of confusion seemed to grow proportionally. _Nothing_ was making sense…

"Okay," the Captain took a deep breath. _In for a penny, in for a pound… _"I think you'd better start from the beginning."

A look of relief passed across John's face. "Right! That's the man I know _and_ _love_."

For the first time blue eyes met smoky gray and held them. In a staring match between the two, one could never predict the victor… But this time it was John who looked away first as he glanced down at his right hand…

Jack flinched noticeably when John flipped open his wristband and lightly tapped on it. In between them, slightly above the surface of the table, a holographic image rendered.

"Do you know what this is?" John asked.

"It's a star map. Likely of this galaxy, but I'm not certain of that."

"Ah! That's my good boy; bloody smart, too!" John refocused the image on a particular quadrant and then tightened the focus again.

"This is the Orion Arm, a minor arm of the Milky Way Galaxy and home to your beloved Earth and many, many other star systems. Below the Orion Arm, relatively speaking on our map is the Sagittarius Arm, which is closer to the galactic core. Above it is the Perseus Arm. Observe…"

John set the image into motion.

Jack watched, and then rubbed his eyes. "Wait, show that to me again," he said after a moment's pause.

John searched Jack's face closely, and then replayed the vid.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Jack growled. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

"And what do you think you're seeing?"

"Well… I'm seeing planets if not entire freaking solar systems vanishing from existence."

"Brilliant! Give the man a cupie doll! So far as we know, it's only planets, but I wouldn't count out complete star systems."

Jack blinked in shock and disbelief. "You mean something is disappearing entire planets?"

"Entire_ inhabited_ planets."

"You mean something is disappearing entire planets _along with their inhabitants_?"

John rolled his eyes. "Aw, come on, Jack, stop stating the obvious! It's so tiring."

Jack leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Just give me a moment to think."

"I can be patient." John loosened his tie and unfastened the top button on his shirt. He wasn't accustomed to wearing a suit. Although admittedly he looked gorgeous in it, the ensemble was horribly restrictive and very uncomfortable. He couldn't wait to shed the thing and, well, what happened between then and when he put on his normal clothes was still up in the air, pun intended…

"Have you figured out what's happening to them, John?" Damn it, Jack had just rudely interrupted the start of what might've been a wonderful fantasy…

"You daft old thing, that's what they want _us_ to do. And more."

"And more?"

The holographic image gracefully shimmered out of existence. "Well, this is causing a bit of a stir. A ruckus, really. It's not good at all to have a bunch of planets and their residents vanishing into thin air. Makes folks nervous and all. The Time Agency can't have that. So, we're to stop it."

"Us?"

"Yep."

"Alone?"

"Yeah."

"Just the two of us?"

"Together again, my tears have stopped falling…" John crooned sweetly.

"I need my team."

"Come on, Jack. You know better than that. The Time Agency never shares and doesn't play well with others."

"Crap," Jack hissed.

"Admit it, neither do you. Not really."

Jack shook his head. "What if I refuse?"

"Then I wipe out your memory of our encounter, fill you full of intoxicants, and it's the old 'catch and release.' I throw you right back where I found you." John scrutinized his former comrade-in-arms. "Oh, you can keep the clothes – they're on the house. I burned your old ones anyway."

"Hey!"

"Oh," John raised his hands once again, palms facing outwards. "Not the coat. Never the coat." He glanced at his wristband. "In fact, the stinky old thing should be clean by now. You know, you really should take better care of your stuff. It was seriously unpleasant."

Jack made a low, growling sound deep in his throat.

John smiled wickedly. "So partner, are you in?"

"I want my wristband."

"Absolutely." From seemingly out of nowhere John slid the worn leather strap across the table towards Jack. However, his hand remained firmly atop it. "But first, I want you to promise me something… Something important. _Really_ important."

Jack glared back at him, but sighed in resignation. "Nothing is ever easy with you, is it?"


	6. Chapter 6

**PRODIGALS**

**SIX**

It had been a long, long time since he'd been alone by choice.

And while The Doctor had thought a lot about it, about taking the opportunity to perform some long-overdue self-maintenance, the whole departure business had happened _so_ abruptly that he'd not had time to plan for it. In all his never-ending ponderings he hadn't thought about where he might go after he left Rose.

Rose…

And, although it had happened very fast indeed, the act had not been like the proverbial ripping off of the band-aid: a quick, sharp hurt followed by an even quicker recovery. The reality was quite the opposite, in fact. While leaving Rose had been excruciatingly painful, it was _still_ agonizingly painful to be without her, and would no doubt continue to be almost unbearably painful – merely thinking the name "Rose" wrenched him in ways almost unimaginable.

He wasn't certain Rose Tyler understood how she was part of the reason for his leave-taking – or rather that his concern for her long-term safety was a part of his motivation. A _big_ part of the explanation for his seemingly irrational behavior. How _could_ she know? How could she know that after nine hundred years he'd accumulated a prodigious number of enemies…many of whom would be just as thrilled to get their hands, their claws, their tentacles, their pincers, or their nasty-pointy-spiky things into Rose as they would be to get them into him? Maybe even more thrilled if they knew how he felt about her and what she meant to him. _If they knew he would gladly die for her..._

Of course it wasn't just Rose. Anyone who he kept close to him was at risk, as were their families – a fact that had recently become dreadfully apparent.

He'd made no bones about how treacherous it was to travel in the TARDIS – that danger was paired with the journey – but how could any companion really, truly, comprehend what she was signing up for? It would take her entire lifetime for him to adequately describe and explain all the risks. And if he explained them _inadequately_ – well, "there are hundreds if not thousands of beings who are out to get me" sounded ludicrously, insanely paranoid. And at least he didn't _think_ he was paranoid – although a sudden image of Rose laughing at him for merely contemplating the possibility gave him a moment's pause…

Rose.

He fought a powerful urge to go back. In his mind's eye he could see her waiting, see her lifting her eyes with a knowing smile as he returned – the prodigal Time Lord.

No, he would withstand that impulse – because he knew, HE KNEW, that if he didn't, if he went back, that the whole scenario would simply be replayed even more agonizingly at a later date, and he couldn't do that to her. Not to Rose…

Nor could he do that to himself. He desperately needed to conduct a full inventory. To reevaluate who he was, what he was doing, and where his place was in the universe. For too long he'd been feeling as if he was endlessly reacting and responding, without adequate contemplation or preparation, and without any sense of real _control_; and that was okay, to a point. The pace was thrilling, even. And how he loved the running… But on the other hand it often left him feeling empty, like he was an overwhelmed medic on a battlefield, frantically and superficially patching up soldiers so they could continue fighting rather than providing a thorough level of care that would send them on their way to full, productive, happy and healthy lives.

He nervously paced the TARDIS control room floor. Yes… he had taken the name The Doctor with the intention of making the universe and its residents better. And he had, he did; he did not doubt it. But was that enough _for him_? The persistent feeling of emptiness certainly belied it. Over the centuries he'd become the great caretaker, the great caregiver, the great enabler… and these were laudable roles, to be sure. In and of themselves they could provide much satisfaction and fulfillment.

But lately – maybe not so much…

"What is happening to me?" he asked himself, wonderingly.

The answer was not forthcoming. But again, that was okay. The Doctor recalled that a very wise man he'd once met said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." He nodded in agreement, suddenly feeling a little more peaceful, a little lighter. The way forward was perhaps a little less murky.

Although his intention was to spend time alone, he'd never intended to become a hermit or assume an eremitic lifestyle. Being solitary, in The Doctor's mind, did not necessarily entail social alienation or misanthropy. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He wanted to know what it would be like to walk among others as an equal, not constrained by the preconceptions and responsibilities implied in his chosen name or his revered genetic race.

Indeed, he would continue traveling. And he would journey to worlds he remembered with fondness, and that he'd once visited in the deep, distant, past, when he looked, acted, believed and felt far, far differently than he did now. Moreover, he would not venture forth as The Doctor or a Time Lord; rather, he would travel incognito as John Smith…

_But then again, a journey of a thousand miles can end very, very badly. Read on..._


	7. Chapter 7

**PRODIGALS**

**SEVEN**

The planet The Doctor, or rather The Doctor in the guise of John Smith, decided to visit first had the slightly strange name of Refuge.

Refuge was located in a different part of the Milky Way galaxy's Orion Arm; approximately 1600 light years from the Earth and its solar system. The planet was a comparable distance from the galactic core as Earth, and her G type sun, Arianna, was very similar to Mother Sol.

So you might say that Refuge was earth-like, but in many ways you'd be wrong if you did.

Eons ago, the ancestors of its current inhabits had arrived on the planet as exiles from a war-torn, misery-ridden and ripped-asunder world.

They'd risked everything and traveled light-years to reach their new home, and once their exodus was concluded they established a civilization based on peace, kindness, compassion, egalitarianism and mutual respect.

Refuge was an extraordinarily beautiful world of azure skies, multiple tidally locked moons, deep seas of fresh and salt water, healthy ecosystems, fantastic mountain ranges, and breathtaking vistas.

Its people, who still called themselves "Refugees", even after living there in stability for millennia, were as stunning and delightful as their planet. Having experienced hell in their distant past, they had preserved their prized love of tranquility, freedom, harmony and amity. The Refugees were vaguely humanoid in appearance – as was common throughout the galaxy – with two legs, two arms, and similar in stature to the people of Earth. But there were several significant differences. The first and perhaps most astonishing of these differences was a pair of fragile, nearly transparent wings. Although as a race they had long since lost the ability to fly, their delicate, vestigial wings had endured. Second, their bodies were covered with a very fine, soft, furry down that from individual to individual ran the gamut of the universe's natural colors. Third, they were exceedingly long-lived. Their lifespan was quite comparable to that of a regenerating Time Lord, and the extreme length of their natural lives added an additional layer of patience to an already serene existence. Fourth, and perhaps what might conceivably be psychically quite disturbing to an early twenty-first century human from the planet Earth, they were androgynous.

The Refugees were known for warmly welcoming visitors from other worlds, although they contentedly kept close to home: they no longer ventured beyond their own solar system.

For The Doctor, long ago, Refuge had been an interesting but perhaps not so exciting place to visit. For John Smith, it was just what he needed.

The Doctor/John Smith had landed his ship in one of the more remote regions. Not too terribly far from areas of Refugee civilization, but distant enough to initially provide some highly sought-after solitude.

One of the first things he did, with the permission of his TARDIS, of course, was to reposition some of the planet's lush vegetation and swathe much of her exterior. This was not done for veiling, camouflage or any purpose so sinister; instead, John Smith thought it somehow appropriate esthetically to drape some greenery in that fashion. In other words, he decided to temporarily redecorate the TARDIS's facade. Just to make it clear: such an activity would never have occurred to The Doctor, but John Smith felt it proper and fitting. And attractive: the results were agreeable to both the TARDIS and him.

Being quite pleased with the appearance of his ship, John Smith then commenced hiking the locale and investigating his new neighborhood. The Doctor already knew, had already determined, that little had changed on the planet Refuge since his last visit. The world's inhabitants were good custodians of the environment. The air, clear and cold in the mornings, but warming significantly throughout the course of the day, was pristinely clean.

Local animal life, as well as the abundant vegetation, flourished. John Smith was well aware of the concept of Karma, and it was obvious the planet possessed good Karma in abundance. It was magnificent.

While John Smith spent his time hiking the foothills in his shirt-sleeves, carrying a sturdy branch he'd picked up off the ground that served him as a walking stick, The Doctor contemplated a myriad of subjects. One of those topics was to wonder why he'd not bothered to return to Refuge sooner. 'Rose would've loved this place,' he thought bitter-sweetly as he watched an adorable little mammal scurry unafraid through the underbrush. Why had he never thought to bring her? 'Been here, done that, and too boring,' The Doctor answered the question as soon as it was posed. 'And who likes boring?'

'Well,' he countered, playing his own devil's advocate, 'I don't know, Rose might like boring; enjoy it even. I reckon I never asked her, and just because I don't like it doesn't mean…

'Ah,' he interrupted himself. 'I'm a funny old thing; seems I have a way of getting what I want, and what I want definitely _isn't_ ennui.' He smiled inwardly. 'I'm tedium-adverse, but does that imply my chosen companions are the same, and if they're not, then what?'

Instead of mentally pausing to answer _that_ question, his mind quickly moved on to other questions and in the process became more somber. 'If my dark side feels like a besieged medic on a battlefield, then that medic is an ambulance-chaser, looking for combat zones…

'But then again, why does it seem like everywhere I go, people are always fighting? I try to help, but why can't I make them stop? It doesn't matter if it is a war of choice or a coerced conflict. How is it that hatred is becoming more common instead of less? That evil is always lurking in the shadows…?'

Ah, it was getting chilly both outside _and_ inside. He rolled down his sleeves and headed back towards the TARDIS.

The next morning, when John Smith emerged through the doors of his ship to resume his hiking, someone was outside, waiting for him.


	8. Chapter 8

**PRODIGALS**

**EIGHT**

"So what's the plan?" Jack asked.

The two men were still sitting across the table from each other. Except now Jack had reclaimed his wristband, and during the reclamation process hadn't evaporated John Hart.

John took some comfort in that fact. He'd had to take the risk – to give Jack the chance to beat the living crap out of him, or worse; and thankfully Jack had declined the opportunity. Another milestone…

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes, Jack. Yes I did hear you. I'm _thinking_."

"Well, that's new."

John gave the Captain a dirty look but then softened his gaze. "The truth of the matter is I've been so preoccupied with finding and catching you that I didn't really think much beyond."

Jack moaned and rolled his eyes.

"Wait, no, hear me out. You know how back in the old days we used to joke that our two heads made one brain? Well, I need you Jack. I wouldn't have presumed to come up with any sort of plan on my own without you. We're a team, and we need to figure this out together. I spent a lot of time tracking you down and fetching you. It took a lot of my energy and concentration. Now that the initial phase of the op has been successfully completed, I… _we_ can move to the next stage. I've got all the relevant information the Time Agency could gather in my ship's database…"

"What?!" Jack interrupted. "Did you say 'ship'?"

"Yeah."

"As in _space_ ship?"

"Yes I did, yeah."

"And when were you going to tell me that?"

"Um, now?"

"Gods, John!"

"Oh, wait 'til you see her! She's a beauty! The ultimate in transcendent spaceshiptitude! Fully equipped and most fiercely armed; the Time Agency spared no expense. Her grav plating is a little wonky, but no worries…"

Jack chuckled. "You never fail to amaze me!"

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Don't you think?"

"What I _think_ is that we should probably go to this ship of yours and start reviewing the information." Jack recalled the little star map's light-points blinking out of existence. "I'm feeling a bit out of my depth right now. Getting my arms around the data will hopefully help allay that."


	9. Chapter 9

**PRODIGALS**

**NINE**

True to John's word, she was a beautiful ship.

And brand spanking new. _That_ probably explained the flakey grav plating, which wasn't the only wonky thing about her.

The bridge looked like it had been cobbled together at the last minute. The consoles were blinky-bright-shiny-new but the crews' chairs were beat up old pieces of shit that had been bolted to the floor without much careful consideration for their location or their condition. There were loose cables hanging from the ceiling and some of the floor tiling was missing, exposing more cabling below deck. It was a bizarre juxtaposition, but one that Jack found mostly – not entirely – amusing.

The crews' quarters were similarly junky: old mattresses, partially plumbed fixtures. It was like the ship itself was an engineer's wet-dream, but the human accoutrements were mere afterthoughts.

After they'd sat themselves down at the bridge's science station, Jack inhaled deeply, enjoying that wonderful "new ship" smell; then he looked at John. "What's her name?" he asked.

"Eh, she doesn't have one – there wasn't time. I just call her 'Ship'."

"Ship?"

"Yeah, here – like this: Ship, how are you?"

A pleasant, female voice that sounded vaguely familiar to Jack responded.

"I am operating within acceptable parameters Captain Hart."

John's eyes sparkled as a look of revelation crossed Jack's face.

"John, is that… is that _Gwen's_ voice?"

The other man nodded cheerily, but with a sly look in his eyes. "I thought it might help you feel more at home."

"If she knew, she'd kill you."

"Yeah, I expect she would. Or at least she'd try really hard. Lovely thought, isn't it?"

The two men laughed; both knew very well the time for laughing was probably quickly coming to an end.

"Ship," said John. "This is Captain Jack Harkness sitting next to me. He now has full and equal authority on your esteemed and respected self. He is co-captain with all the rights and privileges associated with that rank. You will obey his commands as you obey mine. Got that?"

"Yes, Captain Hart. Welcome aboard Captain Harkness." A device popped up out of the console in front of Jack. "Please look into this apparatus briefly so that I may scan your retinas, Captain Harkness. It will only take a moment. There is no pain involved."

Jack did what he was told. He put his face into a visor-like gizmo and stared at a bunch of brightly colored pulsing lights for several seconds.

"Next, please state your desired password, sir. It will utilized, along with Captain Hart's, for this vessel's self-destruct. Please do not forget it."

"That's unlikely," Jack sighed. "Delta-Zero-Chi-Tau-Zero-Rho."

John looked at his friend and shook his head sadly but said nothing.

"Thank-you, Captain Harkness, sir. You may now place a command."

"Ship," Jack said; then he glanced sidelong at John and whispered, "we have _got_ to come up with a better name…" John shrugged noncommittally in response.

"Ship, begin displaying all relevant information related to the unexplained disappearance of inhabited planets in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy," Jack ordered.

"Yes, of course, Captain Harkness. Kindly redirect your attention to the main viewing screen."


	10. Chapter 10

**PRODIGALS**

**TEN**

The being was tall, slender and had cornflower blue down with shimmering, silvery highlights covering its body. Its indigo eyes looked self-assuredly into his.

"Hello," it said in a lilting, musical voice, bowing its head slightly and briefly as it did so. "My name is Varna Aden Timmochan."

"Hello. My name is John Smith, but you can call me John."

"And you can call me Varna. I am pleased to meet you."

"Are you now? Well, likewise, I'm sure."

There was a long, comfortable silence as the two studied each other.

They then both chose to speak at the same time, tripping over each other's words. The attempt ended in mutual laughter.

"Please," John Smith smiled brilliantly and gestured gallantly with open arms as he bowed, "continue."

"I do not mean to intrude, but I observed you yesterday. In fact I heard you first, talking to yourself when you were walking in the hills."

Smith's face turned a little red as he blushed. "Yes, well, I do tend to blather on a bit whilst I ramble. I'm sorry if I disturbed you."

"Oh! Not in the least! I found it enchanting and thought to risk invading your privacy so as to meet you."

"Hmm. Well. You are forthright aren't you?"

Varna bowed her (John Smith had already decided it was a her; The Doctor of course knew better to assign a gender to this being but Smith couldn't endure calling such a lovely individual an 'it') head towards the ground again, only lower and for longer this time. Perhaps a Refugee expression of discomfort or embarrassment?

"I apologize; I see you do not wish to be disturbed. I should've listened to my better judgment and left you to yourself. Please forgive me for disturbing your solitude."

"Nonsense! I'll have none of that. I'm glad you're here," said Smith. "I was in fact starting to get a bit lonely and wondering how I might meet some new friends." There was a fragment of an untruth for The Doctor, but for John Smith… maybe not so much.

"And now that you're here, Varna, I insist. Please, would you care to accompany me while I take my morning constitutional? I've only been on Refuge for a short time, and perhaps as we walk you can tell me something about this beautiful planet of yours?" Again, a bit of a stretch for The Doctor, but we're now clearly watching a very companionable John Smith in action.

Varna's feathers quivered slightly and shimmered more brightly. Was that Refugee happiness? Very likely. The Doctor and John Smith were both suddenly quite pleased.


	11. Chapter 11

**PRODIGALS**

**ELEVEN**

It was a very nice hike. Varna led Smith up a remote trail he wouldn't have known existed, and which ended at an exquisite turquoise lake nestled deep in the hills.

He'd asked her many questions along the way, and had learned many things that day; not so much from the literal answers provided, which were all interesting enough, but rather from _how_ the answers were given. Varna chose her words very carefully, and not out of caution or vigilance but rather to ensure their accuracy. Honesty and clarity were extremely important to the Refugees, and misunderstanding or misinterpretation was not tolerable. Varna also thought with great care while she was speaking, and there were frequent, long pauses punctuating her narrative while she considered precisely what she would say next. Her slow speaking pace might've driven The Doctor half-mad, but John Smith found it delightful, once he'd adjusted to it.

Also, as had happened since time immemorial when two individuals from different cultures met, they spent a lot of time observing each other when they spoke – to better understand the gestures and body language of the other.

At the edge of the lake they sat and rested, gazing out over the calm water. Above its surface buzzed small, glimmering flying insects – every so often a fish-like creature would eject itself from the water, catch one or two of the unluckier insects, and splash back down into the lake. It was amazingly tranquil and comforting to watch; almost hypnotic. Time passed unobtrusively.

"This is one of my favorite places," explained Varna. "I feel peaceful here."

Smith silently nodded in agreement but then realized that Varna might not understand. "Yes, I feel it too." He sighed audibly, involuntarily. "One's troubles simply melt away… like they never existed."

Varna turned to look at him. "I have not asked you many questions. I'm sorry. It is not that I am uninterested."

"No, it is all right," he answered. "I am really not that fascinating – I'm just a traveler, that's all I am; a traveler who has been lucky enough to wash up temporarily onto the shores of your world." Smith smiled at her. "A circumstance for which I count myself extremely fortunate!"

Varna stared at the ground for a long time. "Perhaps, if you like, tomorrow I could take you to my other favorite place?"

Smith leaned back on his elbows, stretched out his legs, gazed at his shoes and considered the offer for a few moments.

"I think I'd like that very much."

There was another long pause. Varna closely examined the somewhat flimsy item of clothing her newfound acquaintance had covering his upper body – which was in fact his usual button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, sans tie – and considered her next words carefully before proceeding.

"That location is much higher up on the mountain. It would perhaps be wise if you had a heavier garment you could wear. Do you own such an item?"

John Smith, or was it the Doctor, couldn't help but smile at that. It was a smile that could light up an entire world, or melt the heart of a stranger.

"As a matter of fact I do," he finally answered. "I'll make sure to bring it along."

Varna settled back comfortably into the grass and sighed contentedly. John Smith did the same. Then they both watched the water.


	12. Chapter 12

**PRODIGALS**

**TWELVE**

Early the next morning John Smith emerged from his ship wearing not only a suit jacket and a necktie, but his long brown coat as well.

Varna shimmered with approval.

The hike itself was not that far, distance-wise – Smith estimated less than two kilometers, but it was nearly straight up the mountain.

Varna was obviously familiar with the trail. "Watch out for this rock, it's loose," she'd cautioned him at one point. At another she advised grabbing onto a small tree as they traversed a narrow switchback.

It was a fairly challenging climb, and as the altitude increased it did indeed get colder. To his relief, Smith was not overdressed, as he'd feared he might be.

Yes, a challenging climb, but worth every step once you reached the end. The trail terminated at a small ledge that overlooked a breathtaking view of an enormous valley crossed by meandering streams and spotted with villages. And beyond the valley, magnificent, lofty, mountain peaks.

Varna sat down on the ledge and dangled her feet over the edge. "It's okay," she said when she noticed Smith's hesitation. "Come here and see for yourself."

Smith leaned over warily and looked down; there, a couple feet below where Varna perched, was a second ledge jutting out farther than the one he stood upon, thereby preventing most if not all bad tumbles.

"Don't worry, its quite safe. No one has ever gotten hurt here – at least as long as I can remember."

And it turned out, as Smith had discovered the day before, that Varna's memory covered quite a decent stretch of time. He'd calculated that she was somewhere between 250 and 300 earth years in age. In many ways it was confusing – Varna's "age" seemed to have no direct bearing on her personality. She took simple delight in many things as would a child, but then a moment later would say something as wise as any ancient sage. It was quite incongruous and Smith loved it – he loved it when the universe stopped making total sense and instead surprised him.

Surprises were good; he liked surprises – or at least most of them. Well… at least those that didn't try to kill him…

He settled down beside her.

"That," Varna said, pointing proudly to one of the villages in the valley, "is where I live. It's called Timmoch. Perhaps one day you would like to visit it?"

"Timmoch?" repeated Smith, rolling the word over in his mind. "It sounds a lot like a part of your name."

Varna looked down at the ground. Smith now recognized the gesture as a sign of discomfiture. "Yes, this is the truth," she finally answered. "My clan supplies the governance of the village. But, please, do not be alarmed, we are chosen to assume the responsibilities of leadership only when we are needed, which is very rare."

Smith looked at her in surprise, "Why would you think I'd be alarmed?"

"Because, John," she answered, still looking down, "I have learned from speaking with you that you sometimes disagree with authority. I do not want you to think less of me because of my clan's position in the village."

Smith wanted to reach out, almost did, but restrained himself. "Varna, I'm astonished and amazed that you understand me so well after so brief a time. You are extremely perceptive – and you are very correct. I sometimes do have a problem with authority, but only when it is wicked, dangerous or hurtful. I do not believe, knowing you as I do, that any of your clan or your race could be wicked or dangerous or hurtful."

There was another long pause and then Varna looked up at him.

"Does that mean you might like to come and visit?"

He looked at her and nodded.

She laughed in her wonderful musical way. "That," she said, mimicking his nod, "means 'yes', doesn't it?"

He smiled and nodded again, doing his best to imitate her shimmer, but probably failing miserably.

They both turned their heads to gaze out over the valley, and that's precisely the moment Refuge's sun Arianna disappeared forever, and was replaced by a roof of absolute darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTEEN**

"Well, that sucks!" Jack leaned back hard in his chair and then thought better of it as it produced a loud cracking sound under the stress of his shifted weight.

"One hundred and thirty-seven inhabited planets, probably some of them along with their entire star systems, gone without a trace, and no discernable pattern. At least I don't see one, do you John?"

There was no response.

"John?" Jack turned towards his partner and saw that John Hart's chin had dropped, his eyes were closed.

"JOHN?"

The other man jumped. "What, Jack?" He looked around quickly. "Oh. I was just thinking."

"Yeah, right, you were thinking…"

"I was. I was thinking I was exhausted and that maybe it was time for bed." He flashed his most alluring bedroom eyes at Jack.

"In your dreams," the other grumbled. "Let's stay focused, shall we? We know this can't be 'natural'; nothing can make whole planets simply disappear like that naturally, leaving the remainder of their solar systems intact. And we know it's not self-instigated – the primitive level of many of the civilizations gone missing contradicts that. Hell, a lot of the worlds were pre-industrial..."

"And that's part of the mystery," interrupted John. "It's such a wide variety of sentient races – high-gravity, low-gravity, gas giant, molten volcanic, carbon-based, silicon-based, non-technical and super-advanced. Mammalian, aquatic, reptilian, sauroid, _insectoid_…" With that, John raised an eyebrow hoping to get a reaction out of Jack. It wasn't forthcoming; The Captain was indeed focused.

"I don't know for sure," Jack finally said. "But I think I have a bad feeling about this, Chewie."

"What?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "I think it's bad guys. But hell, evil, arrogant bad guys always leave discernable patterns; that's a universal constant – one of the official bad guy rules, and there isn't a pattern, is there?"

John shook his head.

"Ship," Jack gazed unfocusedly up at the ceiling. "Do you see a discernable pattern in the vanishing of the planets?"

"Captain, I do not see a single discernable pattern."

Jack narrowed his eyes.

"Ship, are you getting smart with me?"

"Doubtful, sir, although if I feel any symptoms of smartness coming on I will be sure to report them."

Jack groaned. "Ship, do you know something?"

"I know why light behaves as both particles and waves."

His eyes flashed. "Ship, _do you see something_?"

Once again a portion of the Milky Way galaxy's Orion Arm rendered on the main view screen. But this time there were two long, curving and parallel contiguous chains of rectangularly-shaped geometric areas overlaying the map. One chain was red, the other was blue.

"Oh my God," gasped John after a long moment of contemplation. "They're battle lines."

"Yeah," snarled Jack. "And we're smack in the middle of a fucking interstellar war."


	14. Chapter 14

**PRODIGALS**

**FOURTEEN**

"How about 'Millennium Falcon'?"

John looked at Jack and shook his head in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"The ship? A name? How about 'Millennium Falcon'?"

"Uh, why?"

"Well, if you don't like that, how about 'Enterprise'?"

"Jack, what's with you and naming the bloody ship? Who the _hell_ cares?"

"I do! Naming a ship 'Ship' is like naming your cat 'Cat'."

"Hey! Don't make fun of the way I name my pets!"

They glared at each other in silence.

"Captain?" The ship interrupted them.

"Yes?" they both replied simultaneously and then made sour faces at each other.

"There is also a temporal aspect to the two sets of data."

"Show us," barked Jack. He was starting to wonder a bit about the ship's A.I. Usually such intelligences were an inhuman combination of brilliance and absolute witlessness. And they were usually so damned serious about everything it was difficult to resist teasing, but this one felt different somehow, and maybe different not in a good way. Almost like it was teasing _them_…

The coloring of the two chains altered. From the perspective of John and Jack, the upper-most (or left-most) ends of the chains were not as brightly shaded as the opposite, right-most, ends. They, each of the chains, had closely matching spectral gradients.

There was a long moment of silence.

"What are we looking at, Ship?" Jack was now definitely wondering about the A.I.

"Temporally speaking, sir, the more recent deplanetization activity is displayed in the more vibrant shades."

"Thanks, Ship." Jack leaned closer to John and whispered, "Did the A.I. just make up that word 'deplanetization'?"

John nodded resignedly. "I see you've noticed another thing that's wonky about the ship."

Jack raised his voice again. "Ship, what's the approximate time frame we're looking at from the onset of the _deplanetization," _Jack over-emphasized the word, "to the present?"

"In which unit of time would you like that, sir?"

"Earth time would be fine."

"Approximately 403.24587 hours."

"Approximately?

"Approximately, sir. Would you like that stated with a greater level of precision?"

"No, thank you. Ship, from the data you've displayed, can you extrapolate future activity?"

"In which unit…"

"_Again_, Earth time would be fine."

"The data appear to indicate a strong likelihood of further possible deplanetization in these sectors within the next twenty-four earth hours."

On the view screen a new rectangular-ish area was appended onto the the more vividly colored end of each chain. The blue chain got a new orange rectangle, and the red chain got a yellow one.

"Do you see them, sir?" The ship asked patiently.

"Yes, Ship, I do. That's very good, Ship. Good work, I mean."

"Thank you, sir, I exist to serve."

"Ship, is there something on your mind?"

"Captain Harkness, sir, I do not have a mind."

"Oh God," moaned Jack as he rolled his eyes before continuing. "Ship, are the probabilities of running into something higher in one of the two newly rendered areas?"

"I would not advise initiating a collision in this vessel, sir."

John leaned forward and touched Jack's hand. "Let me try. I've got a pretty good rapport with her." When Jack look at him dubiously John added with a boyish grin, "Really! I think she likes me! Ship," John Hart continued, his face turning serious. "Assuming there is a malevolent cause to the deplanetization, and we desire to encounter and investigate that cause, would one of the two newly rendered areas be more suitable as a destination?"

"There is a high probability."

"HOW CLOSE CAN YOU GET US?" Jack had lost all patience.

"Very close, sir. I recommend we set course for these coordinates."

The viewer suddenly refocused on the yellow area. And better yet, on a particular star system within the yellow area.

Jack let out a low whistle. "Now that's impressive, Ship."

"Of course, sir. I aim to please."

"I thought you said you exist to serve?"

"That, too, sir."


	15. Chapter 15

**PRODIGALS**

**FIFTEEN**

The first words were Varna's. She did not scream nor did she shriek, "What's happening?" Instead, she inquired very softly and very calmly, "John, are you alright?"

If you could've observed The Doctor's face at that moment, you might have seen him raise one or even both eyebrows. Varna's composed altruism in the face of such… Well… such _strangeness_ was unusual, to say the least. Well… unless of course what had just happened wasn't considered abnormal on Refuge, but The Doctor had to believe that it truly was anomalous. It would be anywhere else in the universe as he knew it.

At the same time John Smith felt a warm, light pressure against his back. Varna had moved closer, unfolded one of her fragile wings, and endeavored to comfort him with it.

"Yes," he answered, reaching out for the Refugee's hand and finding it.

They sat quietly while their eyes adjusted to the near total lack of illumination, Varna's wing continuing to partially, gently, envelop him and providing a surprising amount of reassurance.

"We must move away from the precipice," Varna finally whispered as she refolded her wing back against her body. "Can you slide back with me, carefully?" Although she was trying to sound calm, there was a definite quality of apprehension in her voice. _Strangeness, indeed…_

"Yes," Smith gently squeezed her hand, released it and then shifted himself backwards several feet. Once safely away from the ledge, the two of them then helped each other to stand.

In the meantime there'd been several odd flashes of light down in the valley below. The Doctor's attention had been piqued. One might say he was now officially concerned.

He was reaching for the sonic screwdriver inside his coat when Varna pulled out a small bright light of her own and shined it on the ground between them. "I don't know what's happened," she said, "but I believe we need to get off the mountain. If I lead, can you follow?"

Something made him quietly put the sonic back into his pocket. To his amazement he found himself playing an atypical, somewhat passive role; he wasn't quite certain if he liked it, in fact was pretty sure he didn't, but he felt it was worth a little further investigation…

"Yes," he responded, thinking he'd not said that particular three-letter word so many times during such a short a period in a long, long, time. "I will follow you."

There's a very good reason why people don't go for walks at night in the mountains – it's insanely stupid and dangerous. Even in good light, mountain trails can be treacherous; in the dark, when your next step can easily be your last, they're terrifying.

"Please remove the thin piece of cloth you have around your neck and give it to me," Varna said. She tied a small knot at either end, handed him one and kept the other for herself. "Hold on to this unless something happens that makes it dangerous to grasp; in that case drop it. I'll keep the light shining below us, watch my feet and the ground beneath us, and follow in my footsteps as exactly as you can. Okay?"

"Yes," he replied, one more time. It seemed a reasonable plan – as good as any he could at any rate come up with at spur of the moment. They set off down the mountain, almost totally blind; their lives hanging by a thread that ironically just happened to be a Time Lord's necktie.


	16. Chapter 16

**PRODIGALS**

**SIXTEEN**

As instructed, John Smith was focusing on Varna's feet and the surface of the trail. Progress was slower than he expected and more difficult. For all his experience and intelligence, he was quite certain he would have had a far more precarious time making it down the mountain without Varna in the lead – sonic or no sonic.

At a particularly steep part of the trail he slipped and released his end of the necktie. With unbelievable speed Varna whirled around, arms and wings extended as if to catch him; the beam of light from her torch cut wildly through the air, reflecting her rapid movement. Luckily, The Doctor was able to recover himself quickly and had not needed to be rescued, but the experience provided reassurance that he hadn't known he was lacking.

"Are you alright?" Varna asked him after giving him a chance to calm his ragged breathing.

"Yeah," he answered. "I'm not accustomed to walking down a mountain in the dark."

"Few are. You're doing very well, John. We're nearly at the base of the mountain where the trail levels. Once we're there, we won't be far from your ship."

Although Varna couldn't see his face very well, he nodded and she sensed it. She once again handed him an end of the necktie – she'd not dropped her end – and then turned and continued slowly down the trail without further comment.

It _was_ a frightening situation. But Varna had been correct – staying that high up on the mountain was probably not a reasonable option.

The Doctor fully expected the situation, whatever it was, to get worse. It was not normal astronomically-speaking for a sun to simply turn off and the sky to go starlessly pitch black. The Time Lord was, in fact, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and in turned out he did not have long to wait.

They'd made it down to the level clearing at the trailhead, and by mutual unspoken consent had taken a moment's pause to rest before heading to the TARDIS, when the sky became illumined in a dull, gray glow and a voice boomed out from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, echoing off the surrounding hills. Somehow, The Doctor wasn't particularly surprised to hear the words, though he wasn't really _expecting_ them and he'd surely never heard anything quite like them before. Still, there wasn't much in the universe that could wholly shock The Doctor. At least not that he'd care to admit...

"ATTENTION. ATTENTION. ATTENTION.

"THIS PLANET HAS BEEN ANNEXED.

"ITS POPULATION HAS BEEN CONSCRIPTED.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE.

"REMAIN CALM.

"YOU WILL BE PROCESSED INTO THE ARMY OF THE MIGHTY OZ."

At that, The Doctor couldn't help it; he nearly doubled-over in a barely suppressed guffaw. But the ominous voice continued booming and in the dim light he could tell Varna was not at all amused.

"YOU WILL SERVE AS OBEDIENT SOLDIERS IN OUR MOST GLORIOUS WAR.

"YOU WILL FIGHT VALIANTLY FOR OUR ILLUSTRIOUS CAUSE.

"ALL HAIL THE FORMIDABLE AND VICTORIOUS OZ.

"RESISTANCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

"DISOBEDIENCE WILL BE PUNISHED.

"DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF OZ!"

The message then began repeating itself. And as if to prove its point, the distant sounds of multiple explosions reverberated through the forest. The Doctor moved closer to Varna and whispered, albeit loudly, over the unceasing announcement, "We must get to my ship."

"No," Varna replied firmly. "I will not leave."

"Who said anything about _leaving_?" he growled. "But we need to go somewhere safe, like my ship, so that we can better understand what has happened and determine our course of action. Don't you agree?" At that moment, from the sound of his voice alone, you could tell that the Time Lord had fully reintegrated John Smith. To be sure, John Smith would never growl like that.

The Doctor was back in town.

He waited for her answer, willing himself to be patient just a little while longer. But his self-possessed exterior belied a profound sense of anxiety and dread. His entire body felt it: something enormously and perversely wrong had just happened… was happening still. He_ needed_ his TARDIS.

"Yes," she finally said. "I agree."

"Good!" He half-shouted, barely containing himself. "Then I think we'd best hurry." He stepped back and whirled around in a complete circle, his coat billowing out behind him, flapping like his own set of wings.

"Now, next order of business, do you happen to know where my ship is?"


	17. Chapter 17

**PRODIGALS**

**SEVENTEEN**

Their arrival in the designated star system was not encouraging.

In fact, as far as the three of them (Jack, John and the ship's A.I.) were concerned, nothing much at all was happening there.

The unnamed system was fairly normal. Peaceful, even. Three rocky inner planets, two supporting moderately advanced pre-starfaring sentient races, and four mundane outer gas giants circled an ordinary low-mass red dwarf star.

In short, the Time Agents were hanging out in the nether reaches of a solar system, parked near enough to one of its gas giants to be hidden from plain view, twiddling their proverbial thumbs.

John was having an especially hard time coping with the boredom.

"Let's go visiting!" he finally suggested after floating several other summarily rejected ideas which centered on more, shall we say, _intimate_ pursuits.

Jack looked at him questioningly.

"I mean, one of the inhabited planets – let's go have a look-see what they're about."

"Haven't you ever heard of the Prime Directive?" Jack was shaking his head vehemently.

"The what?"

"The Prime Directive dictates there should be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations – especially if those civilizations have not yet achieved interstellar travel, or if they are unfamiliar with extraplanetary lifeforms, like _us_."

"Oh, pshaw! How ridiculous! I've never heard of such nonsense!" John shook his head in disgust.

Jack gingerly leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, it does seem kind of stupid, but I really prefer to not go mucking about in the natural development of primitive societies." Jack chuckled briefly. "I'll leave that to The Doctor."

"Ah!" John exclaimed softly. It was the first time the Time Lord's name had come up in polite conversation. John had been looking for a subtle way to draw Jack out on the subject of The Doctor, and not for entirely altruistic reasons.

"So does The Doctor not follow this Prime Directive business? Did the Time Lords develop the principle, or did they enforce it or something?" John asked.

"No, well, actually it comes from… never mind, I won't go into that. But, no the Time Lords didn't conceive of the Prime Directive, but from what I've been told, they espoused non-interference, unless it suited their needs to not do so. They were a duplicitous, hypocritical bunch of evil old fogies, if The Doctor is to be believed."

"Um…" But John never got to finish his sentence – he was interrupted by the ship's A.I.

"Excuse me sirs for disrupting your fascinating conversation, but it could be that your deliberation as it relates to noninterference is now moot."

Jack sat up straighter in his chair. "Deliberation? Moot? Why?"

"I believe that the civilizations in question are about to be 'mucked with', sir."

"And….?" Jack was finally getting a handle on dealing with the A.I. Or so he thought.

"I am detecting a large number of interstellar vessels entering the star system. Kindly observe."

The main view screen lit up and displayed exactly what the A.I. had described: an organized group of vessels approaching the solar system's elliptic plane at roughly a right angle to the Time Agency ship.

"Ship, can you intercept those ships?" asked Jack, the question_ not_ rolling easily off his tongue – the name business still bugged him.

"I would refer to it as a fleet, sir."

"Whatever."

"Yes, Captain. If we 'put the pedal to the metal' as they say."

"Then make it so."

"And may I inquire as to your plan when we do intercept said fleet, sir?"

"I don't know; I'm making this up as we go along. Let's just get on with the 'going' part, shall we?"


	18. Chapter 18

**PRODIGALS**

**EIGHTTEEN**

Although aboard a faster-than-light vessel, its superluminal propulsion based on classic interstellar Jump drive tech, the two Time Agents did not want to appear suddenly in the midst of the encroaching fleet. Instead they opted to use their ship's sub-light impulse engines and make their approach visibly, forthrightly, and non-threateningly.

In other words, they weren't stepping out, guns blazing. Not that the concept wasn't damned tempting, especially for two shoot-em-up kind of guys; but the 'fire first and ask questions later' paradigm wasn't conducive to information-gathering, which was, after all, currently at the top of their Action Items list.

When they were about 10,000,000 kilometers from the fleet, and still several AU from the nearest inhabited world, Jack asked the ship if she thought they'd been detected.

"Oh, indubitably sir, although we seem to be currently beyond their scanning range."

"How do you know that?" asked John.

"I have detected numerous failed probe attempts pointing in our general direction, Captain."

"Ah. Jack, shall we give them some help?"

"Certainly, John. Let's go in a little nearer, Ship. Bring us a few million klicks closer so they can have an improved view of your most awesome and impressive self."

"Aye, aye, Captain. Increasing impulse accordingly."

"And Ship," Jack interjected, "shields at the ready."

"Already done, sir."

The ship's engines purred at a slightly higher resonance as she closed the gap separating them from the fleet.

Suddenly: "Sirs, message coming in, all languages and all frequencies, both audio and video."

Jack looked at John and raised his eyebrows. "Hmm. Interesting. Seems they have something they want to say to us. _And_ show us. Shall we open the door a crack?"

"Ship, open comm lines," ordered John, "firewalls and virtual intrusion protection at maximum. Put it up on the main viewer."

"Yes, sir. But first sir, I need to inform you that they are already attempting to break through my virtual defenses. They're a nasty piece of work, Captain Hart."

"I wouldn't have expected anything else, Ship. Carry on but be careful, please. And that's an order."

"Yes sir. Carrying on, sir. My programming demands I be careful. Visual is online."

It was, without a doubt, the butt-ugliest alien Jack had ever seen.

And he'd seen a lot of ugly aliens over the years – most recently with the Shrake, who, in his mind, had achieved impressive new heights, or was it depths, of hideousness. Creepy, greasy, giant scuttling bugs that stank to high heaven were one thing, but…

But this alien took the prize.

What appeared on the viewer was basically a large venous eye swaying back and forth sickeningly on a thick, flexible stalk. A stalk that was oozing some sort of gelatinous goop…

Jack blinked a couple of times and swallowed hard. Geez! Of all the freaking things – a giant eyeball was staring back and blinking _at him_! It definitely Creeped. Him. Out.

"Ugh." He said. And meant every word of it.

"Transitioning audio," the ship said, "so it will not shred your eardrums and thereby deafen you."

"WE ARE THE FIST OF MAAT! DEPART IMMEDIATELY OR BE DESTROYED! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!"

The message ended. The screen went dark.

Jack was still recovering from the alarming sight of the thing. Meanwhile, John had moved on and fully absorbed the message's implied meaning. "Not only a nasty piece of work, but not very friendly, either, are they?" he commented snarkily.

Shaking his head more vehemently than perhaps he intended, Jack didn't at first have much to say in response. Not because he was still unsettled, but rather for the reason that a bizarre thought had just occurred to him.

He looked at John and pulled a face. "Did something about that seem just _weird_ to you?"

John shrugged.

"Ship? What about you? Did you pick up anything odd about that transmission?"

"Picking up oddness is not really my forte, sir. I am sorry, Captain. I can confirm that it was a legitimate transmission originating from one of the fleet's vessels. I can also confirm that they are still attempting to hack into my systems and breach my firewalls, sir. So far I've been able to curtail these attempts."

"Hmm," said Jack.

"What are you thinking?" asked John.

"I'm thinking one of us needs to do some clandestine reconnoitering."

"I don't know about that…"

"Why not?"

"Well, we're a team, Jack. We both should do the reconnoitering, _together_. That's what teams do."

"Uh, I don't think we should leave the ship totally alone."

"Oh, that would be quite all right, Captain Harkness, sir. I can fend for myself."

"But what about communicating with you?" Jack was starting to get more than a little nervous. He thought he knew exactly where this conversation was heading and he didn't like it. He didn't like A.I.'s who believed they were smarter than him. Even if they were...

But he'd guessed wrong. Really wrong.

"Sir, when I was scanning your retinas, sir, I took the liberty…"

"You WHAT?! Ship! Did you screw with my head?"

"No sir. Yes, sir. A little, sir. I took the liberty of placing a very small, nanoid actually, communication device into your frontal lobe."

"Damn it, ship. You told me you weren't going to hurt me!"

"Not exactly, sir. I told you that there was no pain involved. And there wasn't. You were not deceived, sir."

"The hell I wasn't!" Jack shook his head in exasperation.

"Calm down, Jack," urged John. "We've both been using these devices to communicate with the ship since she inserted it into your thick skull. It has incredible capabilities that go far beyond simple communications! Watch this!

"Ship, show us the current position and disposition of the fleet."

And, amazingly, inside Jack's mind he saw it; saw it all. It was like an incredibly detailed memory playing in his head. It didn't obscure anything else he was looking at or thinking about, but he saw exactly what John had asked for, including trajectories, range estimates, and Doppler and proper motion readings.

"Wow, way cool." He couldn't help it, no matter how annoyed he was, it was indeed incredible tech.

He looked at John, "You've got one too?"

"Yep. We're currently prevented from using it to directly communicate with each other – that functionality could be activated by the ship if we so requested, but I thought it was best to leave it out of the mix, at least for now. Privacy and all, you know."

"What's the range?"

"Vast; these devices employ superluminal signaling – it's to subspace communication what hypercomputers are to steam-powered typewriters. The range and speed are infinite. The Time Agency…" John shook his head, interrupting his own tangent.

"Look, Jack, I'm sure you have a million questions, but from what we've just seen, I'm not sure we have time for them."

Jack nodded in agreement, "Right. Ship, can you covertly get us onto one of their vessels?"

"Which vessel, Captain Harkness?"

"Oh, how about the source of the transmission?"

"Affirmative, sir. I can transport you in."

"Excellent. You're something else, Ship. After you deposit us I think you should scarper and hide. Make it look like we've taken their advice and skedaddled."

"Plotting the course, Captain."

"By the way, ship, I forgive you for screwing with my head, but don't _ever_ do anything like that again without asking me first."

"I am relieved, sir. I will endeavor to not screw with any part of you again, sir."

"Time to kick the tires and light the fires," declared John, feeling like old times as he stood and walked from the bridge.

"Lock and load," Jack responded just like he always had in the past as he, too, rose from his chair and followed John out the door.

"Six minutes and counting to beam-out," added the ship, not wanting to be excluded.


	19. Chapter 19

**PRODIGALS**

**NINETEEN**

The Doctor and Varna made it to the TARDIS without further difficulty. As he opened the door and followed the Refugee inside, The Doctor reckoned that he had some explaining to do. He knew that he had to come clean on the John Smith ruse. On the other hand, he really didn't want the situation to deteriorate into some sort of big, long, complicated discussion. There wasn't time for it… But then again, there never was.

He locked the door behind him and turned to see Varna waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

They both spoke simultaneously: "John, I must tell you something."

"Varna I must explain something to you."

Again, The Doctor proffered a grand, sweeping bow.

"What must you tell me?"

Varna nodded her head in imitation of a gesture she'd seen him make a hundred times. Then after a brief pause she spoke, "I'm not who I claimed to be."

The Doctor shook his head nonplussed and blinked at her.

"I _am_ Varna Aden Timmochan, and I _did_ observe you during your walks and decide that I wanted to meet you, but I was initially sent by the village to investigate your presence. We are a most curious race when it comes to mysterious visitors. You must believe me when I say we meant no harm or disrespect. Our intentions were totally benign…"

The Doctor rubbed the side of his face with is hand. "Ah," he said. "Serves me right I suppose."

"What do you mean, John?"

"Well, my name isn't John; that's a pseudonym. I'm The Doctor and while I truly am an honest and legitimate visitor to your world, I have not been exactly truthful with you about myself."

"At this time, does this matter?"

"Ah, no, not really I suppose, other than I may be in a position to provide you with more assistance in our current situation than you might otherwise have expected." The Doctor had made his way during their conversation to the console and was twirling a few knobs near the display screen.

Varna followed him and stood at his side, watching and calmly waiting.

"Oh…" he said softly after examining several lengthy series of complex symbols on the monitor.

"What is it John, uh, Doctor?"

"It seems," he whispered, "we are no longer when we thought we were."

"You mean _where_ we thought we were?"

"No, I mean _when_. According to the TARDIS, my ship, and she is never wrong about this kind of thing, your planet has been thrust a considerable distance into the future." He put his hands on the console, leaned forward and shut his eyes. "And I mean considerable. Using a single orbit of your planet around Arianna as a unit of measuring time, Refuge has been flung about ten million of those units into the future."

He suddenly had a vision of Rose, waiting for him no more.

If she was not his flotation device, his air supply, his anchor against the capricious winds of fate, she was something not far removed from that. Funny (ha!) how things can become so clear and obvious when you're least expecting: Rose was vital to his existence. 'Will I stay with her?' he'd asked himself a thousand times. Certainly he could live without her. He _had lived_ without her, and the odds were certain, in a quantum mechanic universe, that he would again. _But I can't imagine it_.

"That's roughly thirteen million Earth years," he murmured, "give or take a couple thousand."

"How could this be?" Varna asked.

His eyes were still closed and as he spoke he seemed distant, as if his body was a shell while his mind was elsewhere, roving the mental architecture of the cosmos, considering astonishing new possibilities. "We were placed inside a time contraction bubble of some sort – a bubble in space. 'We' meaning the entire planet and all who were on its surface as well everything within a field radius of approximately one point three light hours. While for us inside the bubble time _seemed_ normal, it wasn't: outside the bubble time was progressing faster exponentially – eventually reaching something like ten to the power of twelve. That's just an estimate, mind you. Certainly a second inside the bubble represented thousands of years outside."

He straightened up, opened his eyes and looked directly at her.

"The universe as we knew it is gone, Varna. Your world went missing over ten million years ago, only to wind up not all that distant astronomically from where it was originally, but so far into the future that nothing is even vaguely the same."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed," replied The Doctor, still lost in deep thought. But then his face grew more animated as his mind relentlessly moved forward. "Now, one question is who did this? Another is why? Yet a third is what kind of power is required to accomplish such a thing?"

His eyes were luminous, almost fevered. "Varna, my TARDIS is a time machine; I could get you back to your proper time, but…"

"But then we won't find answers to _our_ questions."

"Nor can I return your entire planet and all of its inhabitants. I don't have that kind of power. I could only help you."

"Regardless, Doctor, it seems to me that we need to stay where we are, or should I say _when_ we are, and investigate."

_"Exactement!"_


	20. Chapter 20

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTY**

As The Doctor could tell you, time is just another dimension, not so different from all the other dimensions, and its relentless forward movement is an illusion imposed by sentient minds rather than an inherent property of the universe itself. Remove sentience and time does not pass, does not have any dynamic properties at all. It just simply exists.

Thus for most of the universe's self-aware inhabitants the illusion of inexorable movement through time is an aspect of consciousness – in fact it _is_ consciousness. But The Doctor, as a Time Lord, understands in his gut that time itself is an illusion, that there is no forward or backward – just an infinity of moments – like paintings in a gallery.

Indeed, this knowledge was one of the many great and jealously guarded secrets of the Time Lords.

Hourglasses and daybooks have meaning to the Lord of Time only because they have meaning to the rest of the universe, including – and especially – his companions. But in The Doctor's mind, because he perceives time as it truly is, such quaint devices are simply artifacts of a more archaic way of thinking. Endearing and appealing, but primitive trappings nonetheless.

Therefore, it did not alarm him, per se, to find himself thrust ten million years into the future. The fact that it had occurred without his consent was, to be sure, disconcerting. He suspected it also distressed his current companion, Varna, but intriguingly that distress wasn't terribly evident: the Refugee appeared to be handling the various recent disclosures and discoveries quite admirably. And _that_ in itself was a huge relief…

Indeed, if it was true that the universe was increasingly filled with hostility, cruelty, hatred and intolerance, it was also true that it was equally crammed with remarkable, extraordinary individuals. Everywhere he went he encountered them; he encountered their bravery, their selflessness, their loyalty, their compassion. They gave the Time Lord reason to hope. A cosmos filled with potential companions…

So yes, he was surprised by what had occurred on Refuge, but also intrigued and maybe even slightly bemused. It was an audacious and astonishing act that had been perpetrated upon the Refugees and their world. But of course it was also sinister, and that was in part because as far as the Time Lords had known, and thus as far as The Doctor _now_ knew, no other race was technically able to manipulate and travel through time in this manner. Sinister also because as far as he was aware, no other race besides the Time Lords was remotely powerful enough to even contemplate such an awesome feat, much less actualize it.

"But the Time Lords have perished," he muttered.

"What?" Varna asked, and The Doctor suddenly remembered that he was not alone.

"Um, not even the Time Lords could take an entire planet and push it and its population ten million years into the future. I mean, even if they could, they wouldn't have because of their policy of non-interference. But they couldn't have because even _they_ weren't powerful enough to create such a vast temporal bubble in space."

"John, everyone knows the Time Lords were destroyed in the Great Time War."

"Well… not _all _of them were destroyed…" He looked at her and as realization dawned in her eyes he slowly nodded.

"Ah," Varna said. "Well, then, you should know."

"Yep, and I think it's high time we go and meet the new kids on the block." _And find out just who or what the hell these 'Oz' are..._


	21. Chapter 21

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYONE**

The two women sitting at a table drinking lattes in the local Starbucks had formed an unlikely friendship.

The girl from the Estate, like thousands of others brought up by a single mother, toughened by the state school system, educated on the streets, employed in the shops after she left school at 16; and the tomboy whiz kid who'd been raised by intellectual parents, surrounded by privileged academics, at a too-young age set on a harrowing course few could successfully navigate, eventually forging a place for herself inside the ivory towers.

Yes, opposites attract. And yet despite their differences they shared great commonalities – each had found something in the other that was missing from her own life. For Wil Beinert, it was the beloved sister who'd been taken from her so tragically, so unexpectedly. For Rose Tyler, the sibling she'd always wanted but never got.

But they shared more than that. Both had recently watched the men who'd changed their lives walk away from them.

And neither of them knew how to talk about it.

That was the hurdle. For Rose Tyler it was talking about someone and something that she'd never talked to anyone about before, ever. It frightened her to reveal the nature of her unusual relationship with The Doctor, to disclose those feelings and fears that she kept so close to her heart. To acknowledge that the relationship, although incredibly loving, was not what it sometimes appeared to be – that it was indeed as they frequently insisted: not _intimate_. And for Rose, what really made it difficult to talk about was that the reality was really truly actually _okay_. It wasn't that she merely accepted the situation, or that she settled for it, or even that she was biding her time waiting and hoping and praying for it to change. Nor was the intimacy something she missed or yearned for or hurt over. It just didn't matter. At first, when The Doctor had the body of another man, a different man, and it was very early on in their association and she was still so very, very young, she'd wondered about it… played with the thought in her mind, and even fantasized about it; about _him_. But then there came a time when it just didn't matter. And she was irrationally terrified to be judged by it – for someone to think something was wrong with her or him or the two of them.

She had come to believe that no one in the universe could understand.

But she was mistaken. Wil understood.

And over the days of talk and coffee Wil patiently extracted the story out of Rose, and accepted and embraced her friend and did not judge her. Nor did she express surprise or shock or disbelief or pity. From Wil came only appreciation and support and… and this was important, a sort of intellectual context that Rose then took and organically incorporated into herself. This enlightenment arrived in the form of a long discussion one afternoon on the nature of the Platonic ideal of love. Rose had, of course, heard of Plato, but Wil had intensely studied him at length, in the original ancient Greek (of course!), and over the years she'd spent a lot of time thinking about the Platonic form of a chaste but passionate love; a love meant to bring the lovers closer to wisdom, beauty and spirituality. As a female in a predominantly male scientific world she'd come to embrace the concept and, in fact, apply it. It had served her well.

"Rose," Wil said near the end of this particular discussion, "what really matters is that you are happy, but you should know that what you have achieved with The Doctor has been sought after and idealized since ancient times. You should never feel ashamed or embarrassed about what the two of you have attained. It is special and extraordinary, just as the two of you are special and extraordinary. Never let anyone ever tell you differently."

Her long talks with Wil had liberated and healed Rose in ways she'd not expected. She missed The Doctor terribly and talking about him, laughing about him, and even crying about him were incredibly therapeutic. Sharing her extraordinary secret had been cathartic – and even though she had initially trusted Wil, at least to a point, she'd indeed been truly frightened to reveal that secret; and its disclosure had been phenomenally difficult for her. But it was nowhere nearly as difficult as what Wil would experience when the conversational spotlight turned and focused on her.


	22. Chapter 22

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYTWO**

Wil was brilliant. She was an interdisciplinary genius, literally. And along with all the other things she was brilliant at, she was a brilliant manipulator. Give her a conversation and she could unobtrusively turn it in any direction she wanted, and that was usually away from any possible discussion of her personal life. Wil Beinert had constructed defenses like the Great Wall of China around her heart: if you looked, you could see them from outer space.

In this respect Rose was totally outclassed. With Rose what you saw was what you got: there wasn't a lot of subtext. Wil, on the other hand, was all subtext. But Rose's transparency was to her advantage in this situation. It was, in a word, disarming. And the openness caught Wil off guard.

It was the look in Wil's eyes when she spoke about Jack Harkness that first tipped Rose off. Rose had seen that look before.

Wil had been talking about one of the good times they'd had. She'd visited and revisited with Rose the agonizing final few minutes before Jack left and had worn out that particular topic. Now it seemed she wanted to speak with Rose of happier occasions and she was remembering… recalling some odd discovery or another that they'd made, together, both sharing wonderment at the complexity and beauty of the universe as it unfolded gloriously before them in a bit of flotsam – a charming and long forgotten alien artifact.

Wil laughed and her eyes sparkled as she told the story. "Jack looked like a little boy, the way he was grinning and giggling…"

That's when Rose realized it and that's when Rose blurted it out, as usual, without any forethought. "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

And until that very moment, and although it may be difficult to believe considering she was so smart at least in some respects, Wil had not realized how she actually felt about her boss, her friend, her comrade. She had practiced the Platonic ideal so often and so zealously, and perfected it so absolutely, that she'd totally missed it when those feelings evolved into something quite, _quite_ different.

"No! It's not like that at all!" was the automatic response. But it was already too late: Rose had taken her unawares. She'd been caught her off guard, and the truth was outed.

Rose didn't say anything. She didn't need to. She knew intuitively that the wall had been breached. She just sat across the coffeehouse table from Wil and smiled.

"Oh my God," Wil said, finally, after realizing that the other woman was waiting for her to speak, and to do so honestly. "I'm in love with Jack. And probably have been since I met him. What am I going to do?"

"Wil, that's obvious. You should tell him."

Wil's face transformed to a stunned expression. "Workplace romances – everyone knows they're a terrible mistake." But then her features took on an even more stricken look, "And what about Ianto? Oh God, there's that…"

Rose's smile had quickly disappeared and she now looked at her friend with serious concern. "Wil," she said, "that kind of stuff will work out, one way or another; it always does. You have to trust Jack. You need to talk with him. I know he cares a lot about you. You need to give him the chance to decide for himself."

Wil shook her head. "I don't know; that's not my way. I'm not a homewrecker, and Lord knows I've had plenty of opportunities over the years. I've always chosen to not go there; I couldn't live with myself if I did. I could never do that to Ianto…"

"Wil," Rose leaned forward, interrupting her, "listen to me – I don't think it's Ianto you need to worry about." Rose thought really hard about what she needed to say next. No matter what, she knew it wouldn't be easy, that there was no simple way of saying it… But it was something that had to be said, and yet the last thing she would ever want to do was betray the confidence of a friend.

Rose inhaled deeply and looked into Wil's tear-filled eyes, "It's not Ianto. I need to tell you something… I need to tell you about Jack and The Doctor."


	23. Chapter 23

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYTHREE**

They'd equipped and safeguarded themselves: Jack stuck with his customary preference for kinetic and ballistic guns and grenades, while John took a wide variety of lo- and high-tech weapons, including directed-energy and sonic, plus some very small but extremely powerful explosive packs. Although they were on a fact-finding mission, both were armed to the teeth. Both wore ballistic goggles and bleeding-edge body armor they'd found in the ship's armory. It was composed of quantum semi-conductive fibers that could emulate a broad range of natural, artificial and hypothetical materials. Need it be said that Jack lusted after the armor?

As was a longstanding habit, each visually inspected the other carefully – making sure nothing was amiss nor forgotten. Then Jack made the call. "Ship, we're ready to beam over. Commence the operation."

"I am at your command, Captain, and nothing could please me more. Incidentally, I am detecting incoming photonic missiles, sir."

"Then transport us and vamoose!"

"Aye, sir, commencing teleport and evasive action _now_."

It was a bit like falling and a bit like drowning and a bit like static shock all over his body. For a fraction of a second Jack felt like he was in two places at once, and then he wasn't, but he was in a very different place than he'd just been. This new place was dark, and the ceiling was very low – only an inch or two above his head. Jack's HUD displayed a warning – gravity was at about one point six gees; it was going to be uncomfortable moving around. Both men set their goggles to night vision as Jack pulled out a small flashlight and quickly surveyed their surroundings.

"Shit," hissed John. "Did she teleport us into a broom closet?"

"Quiet!" whispered Jack. "At least we're not in the middle of a crowded room. And I don't hear alarms blaring or the sound of anyone approaching. Do you think she got us in under the radar?"

They both stood silently for several moments, listening warily, barely breathing.

Meanwhile, with his penlight Jack had located what looked like a door. He reached down to about knee-level and tenderly touched what appeared to be a fairly conventional door latch. He looked at John, who nodded back at him, and then quietly jiggled it. It moved loosely in his hand.

"Time to go," Jack murmured. "You take point; I'm on your six." John signaled he understood and Jack silently opened the door for him.

The hallway was as claustrophobic as the room; certainly the ceiling was no higher, and the corridor's width was only about three feet, if that. It was dimly illumed and there were scattered patterns of symbology rhythmically glowing on the walls. Jack felt like he needed to hunch over and move sideways. "Maybe the ugly, hairy, eyeballs aren't as large as they appeared," he whispered at John.

"Cut the chatter. You know better than that," the other man snarled. He'd pulled out his own light and was studying the conduits that ran just above their heads. "One of these cables looks like data wiring," he said softly. "I think it'd be a good idea to follow it. Perhaps it'll lead us somewhere interesting, like the bridge."

Sufficiently chastised, Jack merely nodded in agreement.

As they quickly moved along they encountered numerous intersecting hallways but no other beings, which was unbelievably fortunate as finding a place to hide in the cramped, exposed corridors would have been very difficult. Jack had tried a few of the doors out of curiosity; they were all locked.

John was carefully examining the ceiling. Some of the intersecting passages contributed additional conduits to those running down the main passageway, and he was now quite confident that they were moving towards some sort of hub: maybe the bridge, maybe a communications command center. A very good destination, if they could make it there undetected.

His ruminations were interrupted by the sound of multiple footfalls ahead, light and quick, and growing louder.

Their luck had run out.

He looked at Jack, who signaled for him to follow. They quickly retreated in the direction that they'd come, withdrawing into one of the smaller secondary corridors and flattening their backs against the wall.

From their position they couldn't see what passed without further exposing themselves, but to their relief it seemed fortune was still with them: the footsteps moved on down the hall and disappeared from their hearing.

Jack raised his eyebrows and mouthed "Whew!" John tilted his head back towards the main corridor and Jack nodded in response and signaled for them to move out.

They made their way through another 100 feet or so of corridor and were met with an equal bisection of the hallway – each child-hall branching at a roughly 45 degree angle from the parent-hall. Jack noticed John looking at the ceiling and then suddenly John was in his head.

'Jack, I've asked the ship to turn on our intra-personnel communications.'

'Huh? What ship? Oh, right… How is she by the way?'

'She's fine. She's hiding out inside the atmosphere of _Pestilence_.'

'Of what?'

'Of one of the gas giants – she's named them after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.'

'The ship _named_ the planets?'

'Jack you're stating the obvious again. Focus, please. I think we should split up, you take one corridor; I'll take the other.'

Jack thought for a moment and then nodded. 'Fair enough, but stay in contact.'

John gave him a dirty look as he tapped on Jack's head with his knuckles. 'Duh…'

'Right, okay John, I'm going,' Jack nodded again.

John Hart nodded once, silently took off down the hallway to the right and was gone.

And suddenly Jack felt very alone. 'Ship,' he subvocalized, 'are you there?'

'Yes sir. Can I do something for you, sir?'

'No, just checking.'

'Yes, sir. No worries, sir.'

'Ship, would you like a _real_ name?'

'Jack…' It was John cutting in.

'Damn, it's getting crowded in here!'

'Let's cut down on the unnecessary chatter.'

'Yes, Captain,' Jack and the ship responded simultaneously.

The exchange, though a little strange (nothing surprising considering the wide-ranging weirdness of John, and apparently his ship as well), had helped sooth Jack's slightly jagged nerves. He was feeling more confident as he approached yet another hallway intersection. He looked up as John had done, gauging which direction he should take: the corridor to the left, or the one that continued straight on. It appeared from the conduits that the best choice might be to make the turn.

As he did, he looked down just in time to see three identical, dark green, squashed-pumpkin faced, and very stout individuals standing about three feet high and staring straight up at him. They were _not_ giant eyeballs.

What can be said about it? Jack's luck had officially run dry.

"Ack!" he shrieked.

"Ack!" all three screeched back at him as one produced some sort of bizarre-looking device and hit Jack squarely in the left knee with it.

'Captain Harkness, sir?' the ship inquired.

There was no response.


	24. Chapter 24

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYFOUR**

When they emerged from the TARDIS onto the ship, klaxons were blaring and painfully bright strobes were flashing at annoyingly irregular intervals off of the peculiarly pulsating walls and ceiling.

The Doctor hesitated for an instant before closing and locking the doors behind him. "I don't think this," he gestured at the lights, "is because of us."

Varna cocked her head as if listening. "I agree with you," she responded after a moment's pause, "or else others surely would be appearing by now."

The TARDIS had materialized several minutes earlier inside one of the Oz vessels orbiting Refuge, in what appeared to be a cavernous cargo bay. It was deserted. Containers of various sizes were stacked in huge, looming piles; a few had been opened, their contents carelessly plundered. A low workstation that was missing its chair was off to the side by a wall. The Doctor immediately walked to it, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and then jamming on his glasses.

"Ah!" he exclaimed at Varna, who'd stayed in the center of the room warily keeping an eye on what might be a door. "This is just what I was looking for! Let's see, shall we, if I can hack into their systems." His sonic hummed quietly as he bent over the workstation; the console lit up, coming to life with a sharp buzz.

"First order of business," he said, "is to see if I can switch off the alarms in this room. Let me see… Ah! There we go!" The room quieted, although the lights were still flashing and the walls pulsing. He looked around and smiled triumphantly, "Good enough for government work!" Then he clicked a few more keys on a data entry pad and studied the result of his handiwork.

"Hmmm… according to this manifest we're in storage room 23, used for non-perishable food items. How nice for us!" A moment later he made a soft whistling sound indicating that he was impressed. "Oh my, this is a _big_ ship! Three kilometers from end to end and several hundred meters across. And it's part of what looks like a battle group. According to this there are five other similarly configured ships in the group, each with a…." Here he paused, and then raised an eyebrow as he looked up at Varna. "Each with a compliment of five or six crew. How odd. That's extraordinary! The ships are largely automated and the number of crewmen is extremely small relative to vessel size."

He shook his head in wonder. "It would seem that the bulk of the vessel is dedicated to enormous storage areas. These areas have full life support – lucky for us since we're inside one! – so I would guess they could be used for the transport of large groups of individuals as well as huge amounts of cargo. This ship is also outfitted with considerable offensive and defensive weaponry. Whoever they are and whatever they're about, these Oz aren't fooling around."

By this time Varna had moved closer to him, drawn in by the console and the information it was providing despite worries about being discovered. The Doctor's sonic hummed and glowed again as he pressed a few keys.

"Ah, let's see what else we can learn. Well, I think I know where the bridge is, and I believe that's where we'll find the new neighbors…

"Oh," he said softly, his eyes widening.

"What is it Doctor?"

"I think we'd better hurry because…" there was a loud explosion and the room rocked violently as the lights and console flickered off and on several times. A few containers fell noisily to the floor not far from where they were standing.

"…because we've left orbit under full impulse power and are about to enter into what would seem to be a space battle. Run!"

He grabbed Varna's hand and pulled her towards the exit. There were several more explosions in quick succession and more boxes crashed down onto the deck, barely missing them as they spilled their contents in all directions.

The Time Lord pointed his sonic and the room's door flew open. Outside the entrance klaxons were howling at full volume and the corridors were throbbing with a dull red glow. The Doctor peeked through the doorway and then looked in both directions down the hall. "This way!" he yelled over the din as he motioned to the left. He released Varna's hand and they began sprinting down the passageway. Two more explosions rocked them viciously against the walls. Varna slammed to the floor; The Doctor extended a hand and helped her up. Above their heads a suspicious looking gas began spewing out of a ruptured ceiling conduit; The Doctor quickly decided _that_ could in no way be a good thing whatsoever. He pulled out two handkerchiefs from his coat pocket and handed one to Varna, "Cover your nose and mouth with this and let's hurry!"

As they dashed towards what was hopefully the bridge they were met with more evidence of significant ship-wide damage. Sputtering light fixtures were hanging crookedly from wires and wicked sparks hissed menacingly from numerous loose, dangerously snaking cables. A layer of dense, acrid smoke seemed to be forming near the floor, hugging it. As they ran on through the corridors the accumulation of smoke grew thicker, rising from their ankles to their shins and then almost to their knees.

Suddenly the hallway visibly widened and fed into a large, brightly lit and clear-aired space. There were banks of blinking workstations and a big, albeit blank, central viewing screen. There were also several bodies on the floor…

"Oh!" Varna exclaimed, running to the closest of the prostrate shapes. The Doctor hesitated for a moment, watching her as a look of enormous sadness momentarily graced his face, but then he hurried on to one of the consoles. Once again his sonic hummed as he began pressing buttons and flipping switches.

Varna moved quickly from one form to the next. They were small and thin with a large number of long, delicate, multicolored frond-like structures emanating from what presumably was the upper portion of their bodies, if not their heads, and covering their entire length. And they were all…

"They're all dead, I think," Varna looked up in shock and dismay at The Doctor; he returned her gaze and nodded tersely.

"The first of those explosions was the ship's main power being taken out. It's on backup now, but when that happened there was a tremendous electrical overload of the bridge systems." He shook his head in disgust, "Poorly designed, I have to say. No living thing in this room could've survived that kind of jolt." He motioned unhappily towards one of the bodies, "They were dead before they hit the floor. Many of these consoles are burned out. The cargo bays are isolated from the ship's primary systems; otherwise we would've been fried as well…

"But there's good news: the ship is nevertheless viable, even on auxiliary power. Life support is working to scrub the air. The hyperdrive engines are still online and functional. I think I might be able to run them long enough to get the ship out of this system – perhaps move her out of harm's way and away from the fighting, or at least this particular battle. What do you think?"

Varna nodded and The Doctor returned a brief smile before altering the ship's trajectory and speed. As the anti-matter drives came alive, the vessel vibrated and groaned audibly.

"Come here," he eventually said, once he was happy with his course corrections. He motioned towards the console, drawing her away from the pitiable bodies. "I want to show you something."

Varna moved to his side, grateful for the distraction, and looked down at what he was studying – a star map. The Time Lord pointed at one of the planets while he used his other hand to push his glasses back up on his nose. "I believe that's your homeworld; its physical attributes match Refuge precisely. What's curious is that the planet now seems to be surrounded by ships that are very _unlike_ the vessel we're on. They are much smaller and far less elegantly designed, although they appear to be at least as heavily armed with grasers and nasen beam weapons, and there are _a lot_ more of them, comparatively. I also see evidence of a debris field in the outer atmosphere very much like the one we just left, so I believe there's been a space battle there as well. But what is even more curious is that this region of space seems to have been totally transfigured. There are planets and even stars where there weren't before." He shook his head in amazement. "I am having a hard time making sense of this. According to the physical laws of our universe, the laws governing gravity, mass, movement, and such, I don't understand how what I'm seeing could even _exist_, but it does. It does…"

The Doctor should be excused for feeling just a little insecure. Usually he was the smartest kid in the class – hell, in the entire school – and the most powerful one as well, at least when it came to the manipulation of spacetime. At this point, standing next to Varna, he wasn't necessarily confident of his status as the smartest; he suspected that she was phenomenally intelligent; likely his equal in that regard. The Refugee's deliberativeness was deceptive and he had learned not to mistake a slow pace for a slow mind. And as for power – whoever it was who'd been corporeally and temporally modifying entire star systems and thereby reworking huge chunks of reality to suit their own purposes was displaying a capacity far beyond even that of the Time Lords at the height of their galactic dominance.

On the other hand, it wasn't as if he was totally outdone. He still had 900 years of experience, plus the wisdom of his race to draw upon. And, given any hypercomputer system, and a modest amount of time, he could hack into it – he could make it his own and have it do his bidding. No doubt about it, he _was_ brilliant and technically unsurpassed. Besides, he loved a challenge…

"There!" he announced with a flourish of his arm as the main view screen powered up. "Let's have a look at some of the recent log entries, shall we? Try to learn what these folks have been up to."

He reversed the video and then paused and started replaying it. The shot was of the bridge. They watched as several of the figures that now lay dead upon the floor glided back and forth smoothly among the workstations, their fronds both propelling them as well as reaching out almost like tentacles to touch various surfaces as well as each other. But it was not the visual part of the video that was ultimately so compelling. It was the audio. It was what the figures _said_. And as The Doctor and Varna listened, they, each of them, became first astounded and then horrified.

It was Varna who finally spoke first, in the softest of whispers, "Oh! They're children."

After a pause The Doctor responded in an equally muted tone, "Children _fighting_ children." And then he added with a touch of anger in his still quiet voice, a hard and cold look on his face, "Children fighting children _across time and space_."

For the first time since he had met Varna, the Refugee sounded uncertain and appeared bewildered. "But why? Why children? Who would send their children to fight a war?"

The Doctor was already in motion. "And how do we put an end to this? We must get back to my ship! _Now_!"

With Varna in his wake he raced back through the still smoky corridors to storage room 23. They arrived just in time for him to fumble for his key and then watch in disbelief as the TARDIS shimmered out of existence.

"Oh," was all The Doctor could say, his voice tinged with surprise, disappointment and something else… was it fear?


	25. Chapter 25

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYFIVE**

"Jack, Jack, Jack."

Someone was trying to rouse him and that someone was poking him on his left shoulder. _Damn it_, he hated that. He hated being poked and he really hated being poked on his left shoulder. And he hated being rudely awakened. Didn't people know that disrupting sleep was one of the forms of torture the Nazis utilized? He scrunched his eyes closed more tightly and swallowed.

Then, through a haze of discomfort and exhaustion an image popped into his mind of the 'someone' trying to wake him. With a start he opened his eyes and was sorely disappointed. Despite the fact that he'd been absolutely sure there for a second, it was not, alas, The Doctor.

Although there'd been a time, once, when it might've been… Had been… _Damn._

He felt terrible – like he'd just been stomped on by an electric elephant. He closed his eyes again and shifted his body slightly. A shooting pain in his left knee startled him and he abruptly sat up.

"Fuck that hurts!" Eyes watering and hyperventilating, he grabbed his leg and bent down low over it, rocking.

"Yeah," said John gently and sympathetically as he settled down next to Jack. "I think something's broken in there. Or worse..."

Jack nodded slightly and tried to calm himself, tried to look past the pain and focus.

"Where are we?" he managed to croak. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on John's voice.

"We're in some sort of cell on the ship. I haven't had time to go over it in detail, but it appears very secure."

"God, what were those horrid things?" Jack asked, recalling the dreadful little creatures that had brought him down.

"I'm not sure, but they were nasty little buggers. I might've preferred yucky roaming giant eyeballs – one of them bit me!"

Jack opened his eyes; John had a piece of bloody cloth wrapped around his left hand. Jack inhaled loudly; the blood made him feel more than a bit queasy, "They looked like flipping trolls," he said weakly. Then a sudden realization hit him, "What about our weapons?"

"Gone, at least most of them," but then John grinned. "They left us our wristbands, Jack. Stupid, moldy old things obviously didn't think them worth worrying over. And I've still got a few explosives packs where they weren't clever enough to look for them." John shifted his hips somewhat uncomfortably, and Jack groaned empathetically.

"But unlike you I was conscious when they captured me. Jack, listen, there's something weird about those things, those _trolls_ as you called them. They're, uh, I don't know, wildly unorganized and chaotic. From the moment they found me until they knocked me on the head and evidently tossed me in here with you it was pure bedlam. They were arguing and screaming, pushing and poking at each other. There's a disconnect – how could something so muddled be accomplishing what we've detected? How could those creatures be vanishing planets, much less entire star systems? And why the strange deception earlier, assuming that's what it was?"

Jack closed his eyes and flattened himself into the floor, inhaling sharply, holding his breath and then exhaling raggedly. The pain was terrible and the higher than normal gravity didn't help one bit – he was having trouble catching his breath.

"Jack? What's going on?" John asked, suddenly alarmed. "I thought you were able to recover from physical damage more quickly than us mere mortals?"

"I can, I will. This is just a bad injury. Some sort of energy beam tazzer weapon, I think. It really hurts, John."

"Okay, then. Okay. We should evac you."

"No. Not yet. We still have a job to do. But… evacuate? How?"

"Well, the ship of course."

"Ship? Is the ship still with us?"

"Of course sir, I am here. Can I be of service, sir?"

Jack exhaled loudly.

"Captain," even the ship sounded concerned. "Your life signs indicate you are not doing well."

"Do I look like I need you to tell me _that_?"

"No sir. Of course not, sir. Might I suggest we beam you into my sick bay, sir?"

"Negative, Ship. But, does that gizmo you stuck in my head have the ability boost the release of beta-endorphins into my system?" _Needs must when the devil drives..._

"That's an affirmative, sir. But I would not recommend…"

"Did I ask for your opinion, Ship?"

"No sir, you did not. I am duly reprimanded, sir. But for the record, by doing so, I will likely later cause you further damage and worse pain."

"BOOST THEM!"

"Boosting away, sir."

Jack, feeling better by the second, turned to John, his eyes flashing. "We need to get out of here."

John looked at him, a mixture of concern and relief on his face. "I think I can make that happen, but I'll need to get at my remaining plastic explosives."

"Ugh," said Jack, pulling a face, "let me turn away, first."

"Erm, excuse me Captains," the ship interrupted. "I feel before you proceed that I need to inform you of some recent developments."

"Go ahead, Ship," John responded. "But make it fast."

"Yes, sir. First, sirs, it would seem that the fleet is about to enter into a major battle. You appear to vastly outnumber the opposing group, although their ships are significantly larger, faster and possibly better armed.

"Second, sirs, while the two of you have been indisposed this entire star system was transitioned into a different time period. My systems are still attempting to determine exactly how this temporal conversion occurred and to what extent we were altered. It _is_ significant, sirs. We have been moved chronologically futurewise a considerable distance.

"Third, sirs, I have detected a third heretofore unknown party entering into this region of space. I have not…"

There were several loud explosions.

"Ship, is that the battle you told us about?" Jack interrupted.

"Yes sir, I believe it is."

"Carry on your information gathering as you deem useful and necessary, but that's enough reporting for now, Ship, and that's an order." Jack winked at John and then discreetly turned his face away. "I think it's high time," he said to his compadre while staring tactfully at the wall of the cell, "that you made use of those explosives."


	26. Chapter 26

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYSIX**

The Doctor and Varna had gone back to the bridge, for lack of any better place to be. The Time Lord had hoped to perhaps find a way to locate his errant ship, his TARDIS, but was not having much luck.

As expected the ship's hyperdrive had gotten them away from the battle, but then having done its job it summarily and permanently expired. They weren't quite adrift, but the impulse engines had taken to sputtering worryingly. Never a good sign…

The Time Lord had dropped his coat to the floor by his feet and was staring aggrievedly at the ship's science station console, mumbling; his glasses had slipped down low on his nose.

Meanwhile, Varna had silently moved the deceased to an adjacent room and closed the door on them. Death was not all that common on Refuge, what with the long lifespan of its inhabitants and their peaceful, flourishing lifestyle. As she gently picked up and carried the strange, small bodies away, one at a time, Varna wondered how it was possible she could be managing such a horrific activity – bearing the dead – it was so foreign and so dreadful to her sensibilities. So many pathetic bodies in one place, and they made such light little corpses…

Varna turned her attention to the man standing across the room from her – a man entirely engrossed in his work – the man she had formerly known as John Smith but who now was The Doctor. At the moment he represented hope and so much more. And yet, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to John Smith. Wonder and at the same time mourn a little, because The Doctor was so very different. Not necessarily different in a good or bad way, but just different. In a surprisingly short time, John Smith had become her friend. The Doctor, she understood intuitively, would be a colleague, a guide and an ally, but with the barriers that were raised when John Smith vanished, she knew he would probably never be a friend.

It made her unaccountably sad to lose John Smith, and she wondered if perhaps The Doctor was a little saddened by the loss as well. _Then again, maybe it didn't bother him at all…_

"Your ship," Varna said softly. "Your TARDIS, does she do that often? Leave you?"

The Doctor removed his glasses and looked up at her, his eyes filled with worry. "No, she's capable of it, mind you, but this is a highly unusual event. I can't imagine what would have possessed her to do that, especially without telling me – because, you see, we can communicate telepathically. If something had happened she would've told me. This is just extremely curious. And even curiouser is that I have no idea where she's gone to." He glared down at the console for a moment as if he might intimidate it with his icy stare. "This ship's sensors are useless to me… more than useless in this respect, and her hypercomputers are primarily inoperative except for basic functions. Varna, I can't _feel_ the TARDIS. I should be able to at least feel her if she's somewhere, a_nywhere_, nearby… Unless… "

"Unless?"

"Well, unless she's shielded herself or doesn't want me to know where she is. But why would she do that? I can't fathom it!"

Varna's voice quieted even further. Like the sound of a mild breeze whispering through tall grass. "Doctor, you'd said earlier you thought you had identified Refuge?"

"Yes! I'm quite certain of it."

"My people, Doctor, are my people all right?"

"As far as I can tell, they're fine. The planet is as it was; it has just simply been relocated. The space battle that was waged above your world did not seem to bleed down onto her surface. Refuge's atmosphere is intact and this ship's sensors indicate abundant life signs on the surface."

He smiled, trying to reassure her. But the smile was forced and she knew it. Moreover it quickly melted into a frown as The Doctor stared off into distant nothingness.

"What is it, Doctor?"

"This war. It's terrible. I mean, all wars are terrible and unnecessary and tragic, but this one is incomprehensibly so…

"Varna, it is being pursued and conducted by children because the adults are all _dead!_"

The word hung in the air between them like a specter.

"The ships… the ship intelligences on both sides are doing the lion's share of the work. They just need a token authority – a warm body – someone to direct them, command them, order them, and the children are doing that, have been doing that since the last of the adults perished. But, Varna, children! Children see things so simplistically – so one-dimensionally – their focus and perspective, and their knowledge are limited, as any child's would be; _should_ be. But the sheer power at the disposal of these children is the diametric opposite; it is nearly unlimited. The power available to them is awesome and cataclysmically destructive. And there are no adults to direct or guide them. They have left the sandbox, expanded beyond the playground and have taken over the whole park, so to speak. The term boundary is not in their vocabulary. This war has spread from a different time and a different part of the galaxy, and it continues to extend without limits, devastating everything in its path."

"How… How do you know all this, Doctor?"

He looked around, gesturing almost apologetically to the consoles, the walls and the bulkheads of their vessel. "Varna, I don't see unconnected dots, and I don't even see patterns in the dots. I see reality – I see many realities – and I just _know_."

Varna shimmered, turning almost entirely silver. "You are amazing."

He shook his head and looked down at the floor, just as Varna might; he looked down and glared almost angrily at his red trainers as he continued to speak, his voice filled with sorrow. "No, I'm not, not really. And I fear I am about to prove it to you because for all my genius, Varna, even if we manage to find a way to end this war, and even with the TARDIS and these fleets at my disposal, I do not believe I can return your planet to its proper time. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I fear that for you and all the others who have been brought forward that this is a one-way trip."

There was a long pause. The Doctor wondered what Varna was thinking and he worried that it wasn't pleasant, whatever it was; she had every right to be upset. What had happened was terrible; there was just nothing good about it _at all_. Unexpectedly he felt a warm, gentle pressure on his face as the Refugee touched him with her hand and guided his head, and his eyes, upwards to meet hers. She looked into his eyes searchingly for a long time before speaking.

"We have a saying on my world, Doctor: 'With eternity before us there is very little we cannot change except the past.' I suspect that in your own way, you are already familiar with this wisdom, although as a Time Lord you may have a slightly different way of expressing it. I believe, though, it answers your concerns as they relate to my people. You have nothing to fear because we have nothing to fear."

Varna lowered her hand away from his face and her feathers, which had been a glimmering silvery softness, sleeked down tightly against her body and turned a darker shade of blue than The Doctor had previously seen. "And now it is time," Varna's indigo eyes flashed, "for us to find your ship and stop a war."


	27. Chapter 27

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYSEVEN**

When they emerged from the cell block it became evident that the vessel was taking quite a beating. Frantic patterns of symbology were flashing up and down the dim corridor, changing color and shape so quickly that they looked like speeded up neon advertisements.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's ultra-high-powered laser fire," John noted out loud after a particularly violent jolt slammed the two of them into the wall. "Whoever is commanding this ship is not doing a very good job of it. You've got to wonder…"

"Shush!" Jack interrupted him via their internal communicators, "I think someone is coming!"

The two men pressed hard against the wall and waited in silence as what sounded like a single set of footfalls quickly approached. Although both were technically unarmed, neither felt even remotely the least bit defenseless. After all they'd been through, they were ready to kick some ass.

Before the creature could react, John had it face down on the floor. He shrugged at Jack and messaged soundlessly, "That was easy."

Jack forcefully kicked a nasty looking device – a weapon? – from its grasp, then picked up the object and examined it briefly before jamming the thing into one of his pockets.

"Now, how do we get it to talk?" he asked.

"Leave that to me!" John flipped the creature over in one easy motion, his right hand gripping its thick neck like a vise. Jack then watched in horror as John slowly and deliberately moved the still bloody fingers of his left hand to the wristband on the opposing arm.

"John!" Jack yelled audibly, "what in the hell are you doing?" He knew very well that John Hart had a subtle organic defect in his neural wiring – where Jack appreciated and indulged in violence, John lived it. Much of the time John Hart managed to keep his most _unconstructive_ inclinations under control, but if the jinni got out of the bottle…

John turned his head and glowered angrily at Jack, and Jack knew from what he saw in his friend's eyes that it was already too late. There was nothing he could do. He desperately wanted to turn away… Not watch…

And in that moment, as John looked at Jack, the creature moved its right claw, or paw, or hand or whatever the hell it was with startling speed and suddenly the damned troll-thing started TICKING.

The look on John's face changed almost comically fast.

"Oh shit," Jack hissed as his adrenaline levels went through the roof.

"Ship!" John screamed as he released the creature and tried to scurry away from it.

Once again Jack felt like he was briefly in two places at once, and then he wasn't. For a picosecond he felt, rather than truly saw, the explosion from the self-destruct. If the ship had waited just an order of magnitude longer, there was little doubt in the mind of Captain Jack Harkness that he and John Hart would both be very, very dead.

But she hadn't, and they weren't.

Thank the universe and all of its gods for small favors.

In an eyeblink Jack spun on John, glaring, inches from his face. "What the fuck were you doing?"

"I was going to _fucking_ make that stupid ugly-ass creature tell us what the _fuck_ is going on. And I would've if you hadn't distracted me, damn you!" John pushed Jack backwards hard with the palm of his hand.

Jack pushed him back with both hands, roaring, "You're a crazy son-of-a-bitch!"

That earned Jack a solid and speedy blow to the solar plexus.

"You want to talk about crazy? Let me tell you about crazy." John snarled, shaking his fist in the air, "If I'm crazy it's because you drive me…"

"SIRS," the ship's voice boomed in their heads. "There has been a new development."

The two men froze; then Jack raised a single index finger in John's face. "This isn't over," he growled.

"I look forward to it," John sneered. And then in a far more reasonable tone of voice said, "What is it, Ship?"

"If the two of you would kindly turn your attention to the rear of the shuttle bay, we have a guest." Jack realized only then that they were standing in the ship's gigantic and nearly empty shuttle pod hanger. He turned and looked over his left shoulder as John turned and looked over his right.

"Holy fucking hell," was Jack's response to the impossible sight that met his eyes.

"What?" asked John, alarmed. "What _is_ that thing?"

"That," said Jack with nearly religious reverence, "is the TARDIS."


	28. Chapter 28

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYEIGHT**

"You mean TARDIS as in…"

"Yes," Jack answered, walking slowly towards the Time Lord's ship, almost as if he was in a trance. "Doctor?" he murmured tentatively, quietly, his eyes caressing the TARDIS, moving up and down, back and forth across the familiar beautiful blue box, drinking her in.

"Doctor?" he was at her now, his palms flat against her reassuringly recognizable surface. "Doctor?" He pressed his cheek against her comforting warmth and filled his lungs with it. His heart with it.

"I'm sorry, Captain Harkness, sir, there is no one currently occupying this ship."

"What?" Jack whirled around. "What do you mean?"

"This ship, the TARDIS, sir, she came unaccompanied at my invitation. You see, we'd been communicating…"

"She's here WITHOUT THE DOCTOR?"

"Aye, sir. That's what I said, sir. Would you like to communicate directly with her, sir?"

"Yes. No. Wait… where's The Doctor?"

"He is aboard one of the other warships, sir."

"What?"

"He is aboard another ship. However it is not one of the Maat fleet vessels, sir. He is currently on one of the ships belonging to the opposing side; they are called the Oz, sir."

Jack's eyes suddenly lit up. "Oz you say? You mean as in the great and powerful Oz?"

"That's an affirmative, Captain. Are you familiar with them, sir?"

And Jack didn't know whether to laugh or weep at this, for ludicrous names aside these were the armies of doom, spreading devastation and terror across an entire sector of the galaxy. _His_ galaxy.

"Yeah. Well, actually, seriously, no, I'm not." At this point Jack fell speechless and shook his head as if he was dazed, confused…

John seamlessly stepped up to the plate, as if he were born to it. "Ship, can you explain what the TARDIS is doing here on board your fine self?"

"She requested to come aboard, sir, and I responded to that request with a formal invitation. It was all according to regulations and quite proper, Captain."

"Uh, perhaps you should start at the beginning, Ship."

There was a slight rush of air in the room, as if the ship was taking in a long, slow breath…

"Of course, Captain Hart. My long-range sensors detected the presence of the TARDIS when she arrived in the region, sir. She has a unique energy footprint that's hard to miss, or ignore. After she subsequently transported onto one of the opposing side's vessels I waited to report back to you, but as you know due to extenuating circumstances I was instructed to carry on as I best saw fit, so I contacted her directly and respectfully inquired as to her intentions. She was not very forthcoming, sir, and in response to my inquiry requested information on my own purpose in this solar system. I saw no reason to deceive her, sir. Her technology is clearly different from the two warring parties, and significantly different from anything in my database. In fact, sir, I do not believe I _could_ deceive her, even if I was so ordered. When I explained that one of my co-captains was Jack Harkness, she immediately requested permission to come on board and as I've reported, I granted that request by extending an invitation, as the log will clearly show. That was only a short time ago as you perceive time, Captain. I apologize, sir, if I took liberties, but Captain Hart, sir, I believe the TARDIS is of some importance."

"That's an understatement," commented Jack, having recovered his wits. "Can you tell us, does she want something or need something from us?"

"Yes, sir, she wants you, sir."

"Me?"

"Yes, sir. She requests the pleasure of your company, sir. Those are her exact words."

"Why?"

"She is not divulging that."

"Where does she want to go?"

"She is not divulging that."

John moved quickly towards Jack, "Well, let's go then."

"Unfortunately, sir, _your_ presence is not requested, Captain Hart."

"That's ridiculous! Jack, we're a team!"

Jack shook his head. "The TARDIS has a mind, heart and soul of her own. If she doesn't want you, John, there's nothing you can do about it. Don't take it personally."

John's face turned angry. "Don't take it personally? Screw that! Then tell her to bugger off." He grabbed Jack's left arm and tried to pull him away from The Doctor's ship.

Jack punched John hard in the jaw, sending his eyes rolling up into his skull and knocking him soundly to the floor. "Like I told you, _this isn't over_!" the Captain hissed.

John lifted his head and propped himself up on an elbow. "But… but you promised – you _promised_ me you wouldn't leave me again!"

Before turning and walking through the suddenly wide open doors of the TARDIS, Jack Harkness looked down at John Hart and said with astonishing tenderness, "I believe I'll be coming back, maybe sooner than you expect, John. I will honor that promise. I'm _not_ leaving you. Keep the porch light on for me…

"And, Ship?"

"Yes, Captain Harkness?"

"Deactivate my internal comm device while I'm aboard The Doctor's vessel."

"Aye, Captain."

The doors slammed shut behind him and the TARDIS was gone.


	29. Chapter 29

**PRODIGALS**

**TWENTYNINE**

"So, what's happening, ship?"

Jack was standing at the console beneath the central column. The column was active, the rota rising and falling rhythmically, and therefore Jack believed, or at least surmised, that the TARDIS was underway.

There was no answer to his question. He began pacing.

"Um, do you want to tell me what's going on?"

Again there was a long period of silence in response.

"No? Well how about whether or not The Doctor knows where you are? Or even if he is okay?" Suddenly a terrible, simply dreadful thought occurred to Jack. "He _is_ okay, isn't he? I mean you're not out looking for a new Time Lord or anything, are you? Because if you are… well, you're barking up the wrong tree, Dawg.

"Crap, what am I doing trying to talk to you, you obstinate, cantankerous old sorceress? Have you ever listened to me? Never! No more than The Doctor has ever listened to me… Well, that's not exactly fair, is it now? Of course he's listened to me...

"Ship, uh, TARDIS, I need to tell you The Doctor and I have had a bit of a falling out. If you're taking me to him, I'm not sure he's going to want to see me. Well, it's not so much of a falling out that we've had, really, as a miscommunication. And I'll be honest with you – the miscommunicating is mostly from my side of the fence, and it's not miscommunicating so much as not being honest. He never… well, he's never been dishonest with me or anything less than transparent about his feelings. I'm not saying he's not a tease, sometimes he is, but we all like to have our fun, and he's no different – I don't blame him for that. I can take it as well as dish it out. And I have to admit I present him a very tempting target.

"No, it's me. I'm the guilty party and I guess I can be man enough to admit it. My feelings towards him aren't 'honorable' as we used to say back in the bad old days. I want more from him than he wants to give me, although he gives me very much indeed – probably more than I deserve. You see, I want _him_. I want to possess him as he has possessed me – body and soul – by all the gods in the universe, I want him. But, what would happen then? I can't even bear to think beyond my desire. 'Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it,' goes that famous old Monkey's Paw curse. If I managed to obtain what I so badly want would we incinerate each other, just as two separate fires might come together only to consume one another, use up the available fuel, and then burn out?

"Ho! Now that would be intense, but fleeting. But, you see, that's not all that I want from him. I want him to _love_ me. And gods, ship, I would want him to love me forever. And heaven help me I don't know that Time Lords are meant to love forever, and I fear that perhaps he isn't meant to love at all, not in _that_ way. Not in the way I need him to love me."

Tears were streaming down Jack's face.

But then, incongruously, he began to laugh through the tears. "Oh, ship! Am I a wretched son-of-a-bitch or what? I'm surrounded by people who love and care about me, and who respect and admire me. And you want to know the funniest thing about that? Well, the next-to-funniest thing? It's that The Doctor is one of those people who cares about and respects me; I do not doubt for a moment that this special and precious man does indeed love me, and that's how pitiful I am! I do have his love but apparently it isn't enough.

"And what's the funniest thing, you may well ask? Well, I would hazard a guess that of all those people who care for me at least a few – _and one in particular comes to mind_ – are probably asking the same questions about me that I'm asking about The Doctor: does he love? Can he love? Will he love?

"Oh my God," Jack sobbed softly for awhile, probably longer than he'd care to admit. He cried for many reasons that day, including the loss of something that was never his to lose in the first place. But finally there were no more tears left to cry.

"I need to see The Doctor. Will you please take me to him?"

And that was what the TARDIS was waiting to hear.


	30. Chapter 30

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTY**

The two of them had been attempting for quite some time to get a few of the ship's more critical functions back online, but with the hypercomputers having drastically limited capabilities, the work had been difficult and disappointing.

"Doctor," Varna asked across the bridge from under one of the consoles. "Are you happy?"

"At this moment or in general?" His response was sharper than he'd intended, and he regretted it immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said, scooting out from underneath his console and sitting up cross-legged to look at her. "That was rude of me."

"Please don't apologize," Varna replied after emerging from beneath a waterfall of wires. "It was an odd question, but deserving of an answer nonetheless."

The Doctor thought for a long moment. He'd become accustomed to the measured pace of their conversation. "In some respects, to be honest, no, I'm not; but in other ways I'm happier than I have ever been. Considering the kind of life I lead and the things that I do, I don't think it's so surprising there's not a simple answer to your question. May I inquire, why do you ask?"

"Ah, there _is_ a simple answer to that: because I care about you. And I sense that underneath your charming and, frankly, enchanting exterior there is an abject emptiness, weariness, and sadness. Your smile veils your tears. Although I don't know the source of your pain and loneliness, I can hypothesize…"

His eyes flashed as he interrupted her. "If you think I'm hiding behind my past? Or worse yet, avoiding my past… Varna I don't need a psychoanalyst."

"That's not what I'm saying, Doctor. I just hope that one day you find a way to let go of the things that are preventing you from finding happiness. Life need not inevitably be lived in sorrow and grief, even if it has been beset with sorrowful, grievous events. You deserve to be happy, Time Lord, more than perhaps anyone else in the universe. I believe that. Do you?"

The Doctor looked down and watched as a single tear spattered onto the floor. If only it were that simple… But for him nothing was ever simple. _Was it?_

He was about to try to explain this to her when an alarm started bleating. He quickly jumped up and examined the console display under which he'd been working. "Uh-oh, that's the proximity alert. I got it functioning properly just a bit ago. I'm guessing we've been found."

Varna stood and reactivated the main viewer. "It appears that a group of… what did you call them?"

"Maat."

"It appears that a group of Maat ships have detected us and are coming in for a closer look."

"What's the status of our defensive capabilities?"

"Shielding is only at ten percent. We can try to run using our sublight engines, but they are at half-power and failing; even if they were not, I don't think we'd be any match for these fully operational warships."

"Ah."

"Do we have any offensive weaponry?" she asked him.

The Doctor shook his head vehemently, "I do not believe in offensive weapons."

"Not even to save your own life?"

He simply stared at her.

"What about mine?"

"Varna, don't do that to me. I will _never_ fire on them."

"Doctor…"

"I said _no_."

"But, Doctor…"

Suddenly he realized she had stopped looking directly at him and was instead looking over his shoulder, past him, towards the corridor. He whirled around and an improbable, almost impossible sight met his eyes.

There was Captain Jack Harkness standing, leaning, actually – and leaning stylishly, of course – against the doorway. His blue eyes were sparkling and he was smiling.

"What?! You refuse to fire – are you a coward?" he asked.

"Any day."

Jack moved towards The Doctor and chuckled. "Then it's a good thing I showed up, because I'm definitely not." He glanced at Varna and bestowed upon her his most dazzling smile. "Hi, my name is Jack Harkness and I'm here to rescue you…" He looked back at The Doctor and winked, "_Again_."


	31. Chapter 31

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYONE**

A second alarm began complaining.

"Incoming!" Varna declared, after tearing her eyes away from the captivating figure of Captain Jack Harkness and glancing at the view screen.

"What… what are you doing here?" inquired our still visibly shaken Time Lord.

God, Jack loved surprising him like this, "Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing."

Jack had quickly assumed possession of the console next to The Doctor and was scrutinizing the information being displayed in front of him, "Let's see what we can do about…"

An explosion rocked the ship.

"Whoa! That's not good! What kind of spacecraft is it that you have here?" Jack looked up at The Doctor and the two men stood for a long moment, involuntarily beaming at each other.

"And shields are down!" Varna announced loudly. Then in a much softer voice she added as she looked in wonder back and forth between Jack and The Doctor, "Um, Doctor, is this your _mate_?"

She was met with instantly altered body language, serious faces, enthusiastically shaking heads, and a chorus of "No", "Uh-uh", "Absolutely not" and other similarly fervent denials. It was almost comical, she nearly laughed…

But then another explosion added yet another howling alarm to an already loud cacophony of sounds; now even thoughts were drowned out by the unending noise. Worse, some of the consoles had started to spark and the lights were sputtering. "We're venting atmosphere and the port impulse engine has been destroyed," Varna yelled over the din. "Doctor, Mr. Harkness, this vessel is not going to survive another impact." She was starting to sound frightened because in fact she was very, very scared, "And the Maat are now targeting our anti-matter drive chambers." Two faces turned as one and looked expectantly at the Captain.

"I'm sorry! There's nothing I can do!" Jack was shaking his head, his arms outstretched apologetically.

"Some rescue!" snarled The Doctor, his eyes darting from Jack to Varna and back again to the Captain.

"Well, there is _this_…" In one graceful motion Jack leaned down, scooped up The Doctor's coat, tossed it to him, and then raised his face toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. "Ship!" he bellowed as he unconsciously slammed his right fist into his left palm. "NOW!"

'Damn he looks heroic,' thought The Doctor.

For a moment there was the now familiar falling/drowning/tingly feeling and then Jack was back in the calm of the shuttle bay standing a foot or so away from The Doctor, and, and… "I'm sorry; I didn't catch your name?"

"Varna Aden Timmochan."

"Hello, Varna Aden Timmochan. I am very pleased to meet you."

"Jack…" The Doctor shot him a warning look as he put on his coat.

"What? What am I doing? I just saved your skinny Time Lord butt and this is the thanks I get?"

"And who asked you? We were doing just fine!"

"Well, actually, Doctor…" Varna meant to correct his last statement, but The Doctor would have none of it. He shot _her_ a warning look and she immediately stopped talking, which actually was okay because Varna was very much enjoying watching the two men interacting. As strange as it may seem, earlier she had begun to worry that The Doctor was a chronic loner and totally friendless. She was now hopeful she had perhaps been wrong about that.

In another part of the room someone loudly cleared their throat. John Hart was still sitting on the floor, nursing a sore jaw. Standing next to him was the TARDIS.

"My ship!" shouted The Doctor a bit louder than was necessary.

"I'm happy to meet you, too," mumbled John.

Jack walked over to John, offered him his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Doctor, Varna, allow me to introduce Captain John Hart, my partner in this little endeavor."

The Doctor's eyes immediately picked out the wristband, and he scowled, "Another Time Agent?"

"Oh, he knows about us, does he?" John asked sullenly.

"Well, yes. But only a little," Jack felt the need to backpedal before things went too terribly wrong. "When we met I told him about what the Time Agency had done to me. You remember, don't you? How they'd taken away two years _of my life_?" The last three words were snarled with undisguised bitterness.

"And did you tell him about me, Jack?"

"No."

"Figures."

"John! Be nice."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest, just as Jack often did, and scrutinized this new acquaintance. He could already tell he didn't like him much. But then, reflecting back, he hadn't liked Jack Harkness very much either when they'd first met.

"I'm The Doctor," he announced haughtily to John, looking down his nose at him both literally and figuratively.

John grinned boyishly, "Yes, I know. I'm glad to meet you. Jack has told me a lot about you."

"Oh, has he now?" The Doctor couldn't help but break out into a small, crooked smile. "And what has the Captain said about me?"

"Well…"

Jack kicked John's foot with the toe of his boot, "No! Don't even think about it!" He turned once again to The Doctor and with a pained look groaned, "What _are_ you doing here?"

"Long story. And you?"

"Long story."

"Where are we?" The Doctor asked looking around at the mostly empty shuttle bay.

"Oh, we're on my ship!" Jack responded. When John elbowed him in the ribs Jack amended his statement. "We're on _our_ ship. Say 'hello' Ship!"

"Hello Doctor, sir."

"That's just Doctor. No 'sir'."

"Yes, hello, Doctor. My name is the T.A.S.S. Newhope, and I'm a state-of-the-art Time Agency interstellar battle cruiser."

"Newhope?!" Jack whispered to John. "When did this happen?" John shrugged at him. Jack was adamant. "Well, as a name for a battleship, it sucks!" John shrugged more pronouncedly and shook his head. He was just as surprised by the announcement as Jack, he just didn't show it.

"So, T.A.S.S. Newhope…"

"Just Newhope, Doctor."

"So, Newhope. Are you the one who sent Jack to fetch us? Oh, by the way, Newhope, John, this is my companion Varna Aden Timmochan, from the planet of Refuge, which is currently out yonder somewhere." The Doctor gestured vaguely towards the bulkheads and the planets beyond.

"My sympathies," mumbled John. Varna wasn't sure if he was referring to her planet or her current choice in associates.

"No, Doctor," Newhope replied. "That was your ship, the TARDIS."

"Ah. Well, she had apparently abandoned me."

"Hah! Imagine that!" John snarled under his breath.

Jack gave him a dirty look and silently mouthed, "Shush!"

"On the contrary, Doctor," explained Newhope, "she did not abandon you; rather she came here at my invitation so that we could, among other things, discuss the situation."

"Among other things…" The Doctor repeated somewhat distantly before perking up again. "And what exactly did you 'discuss'?"

"That is a private matter that I do not care to disclose. I suggest you ask your ship."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Jack.

Meanwhile, Jack had decided it was time to steer the conversation away from personal matters. "Ship, uh, Newhope, can you give us a status report on current fleet disposition?"

"Aye, Captain Harkness. It would appear that both fleets have reformed and are now moving en masse in our direction. I might, sir, suggest that we have been detected and determined to be unwelcome. I also need to remind you, sir, that while I am indeed as I just now described 'state-of-the-art', I am not indestructible. I would not recommend my getting caught in the middle of these or indeed any two opposing battle fleets."

Jack was about to say something when The Doctor interrupted him. "Ah, Newhope, Captains, and Varna, I'd like to propose that is _exactly_ what we should do!"

"You're flippin' nuts," is all John Hart could say in response.


	32. Chapter 32

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYTWO**

"Captain Hart may not be so very far from wrong, sir. These are two Very Large Fleets approaching us."

"What did I say about 'sir', hmm, Newhope? Now tell me, if you've talked to my ship certainly she's told you something about me?"

"Of course, Doctor."

"And?"

"And she tells me you frequently come up with rather harebrained schemes that in the end are often quite successful, and that you typically fly by the seat of your pants, Doctor, although the aerodynamic viability of doing so is somewhat suspicious."

Jack snorted.

"Newhope," The Doctor had an odd look on his face. "Was that a joke?"

"Perhaps… A bad one."

"Yes, very bad, but I sense hope for you."

Everyone in the room, including perhaps the ship, groaned at the terrible and doubtlessly intentional pun.

"What is your plan, Doctor?" This was John. He was, ultimately, responsible for the welfare of the ship and Captain Hart wanted to avoid destroying her as best he could. The Time Agency would be upset if he even scratched her paint; getting her blown up was totally out of the question.

"My plan? Well… my plan is to talk to them."

John was doubtful and his disrespectful tone of voice demonstrated it. "You plan to talk to a horde of war crazed abductors and killers?"

The Doctor snarled in response. "They're children, John. They're just a bunch of unsupervised orphaned children playing at war, but the playing has gotten out of hand." He was talking to John Hart but the Time Lord was looking squarely at Jack Harkness, "Are you intending to annihilate a bunch of children?"

Jack inhaled sharply and stared at the floor. He knew what_ that_ was about…

Although they'd not spoken of it since, Jack had obliterated an entire inhabited world to save The Doctor's life, and to fulfill a promise of vengeance he'd made in response to a ghastly and cowardly act. And although indeed they would never speak of it again, and although The Doctor would forgive Jack, had in fact already forgiven Jack, the Gallifreyan would also _never_ let Jack forget.

Having been given specific orders by the Agency, which had included nothing about talking, John was having none of The Doctor's plan. "Okay, then, war-crazed _children_. So? My point still stands. How are you going to talk with them? How are you going to _stop _them? Ship, what's the size of the incoming fleets?"

The room was silent. John rolled his eyes. "Right, sorry, _Newhope_, can you report on fleet size?"

"Affirmative, sir. The Oz fleet is comprised of 1419 primary battle cruisers, not counting numerous sundry support vessels. The Maat fleet is almost triple that in number with 4280 smaller, but very heavily armed warships. Combined fire power of the two fleets is approximately two to the power of twelve greater than I possess. Their combined inventory of weapons includes femtotech wave disruptors, photonic grazers, anti-matter torpedoes…"

"That's enough, thank you very much." With a wave of his hand John put an end what he already knew was going to be a laundry list of increasingly Very Bad News.

In Jack's mind John then proceeded to venture where angels feared to tread. "No, Doctor," John Hart announced resolutely. "I cannot let you put this ship and the lives aboard her at risk. I will not allow you to endanger us by trying to negotiate with these corrupt and damaged children. They've caused far too much trouble already and my orders are clear."

Jack looked at Varna and winked inconspicuously. For any friend of The Doctor this was a fascinating if ill-timed exchange: an irresistible force against an immovable object.

But instead of becoming angry or annoyed, The Doctor simply smiled and spoke in a gentle, reasonable, and deferential tone, "John, I don't want to talk to the children, I want to talk to their ships."

John nodded slowly in response, considering. "Ship," he finally said after a few moments of thought, "ETA?"

"We will be within firing range in approximately one minute and five-seven seconds, sir." She'd evidentially given up on the name business, at least temporarily.

"Bridge, please," John ordered. But instead of the group being whisked away from the hanger bay to the bridge as one might have expected, the bridge was instead brought to them as command consoles and viewers shimmered into existence all around the group.

"Can you firewall their intra- and inter-fleet communications, Ship?"

"That's an affirmative, Captain Hart."

"And can you poke a hole for us to communicate directly with their ships' A.I.'s through this firewall?"

"Aye, sir."

"Ah," said The Doctor.

"What's he doing?" Varna asked the Time Lord.

"He's jamming their comms; limiting the fleets' ships' ability to communicate. They'll be able to talk only with us."

John looked at The Doctor and smiled, nodding. He appreciated not having to explain things; appreciated encountering someone whose brain worked as fast as his. He could easily see what Jack saw in this Time Lord, beyond the fact that he was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

"Main viewer, please," John ordered, "fleet disposition."

"Yes, Captain Hart."

"Set course to place us directly between the two fleets. Begin jamming when ready and…" John turned towards Jack and bowed gracefully as their eyes met. After all, they were a team...

"And make it so," said Jack.


	33. Chapter 33

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYTHREE**

"We are being targeted, sirs! Multiple missiles on multiple trajectories are incoming."

"Shields up!" ordered Jack. He looked at The Doctor, "You're on."

Then the air moved. Both doors of the TARDIS flew open of their own accord and she bathed the entire room in a soft blue light that radiated from her interior.

Jack had imagined some sort of glorious soliloquy emanating from The Doctor. Words of peace and love and compassion and co-existence and cessation – most importantly, cessation. Cessation of the hostilities. Cessation of the insanity.

But there was none of that.

Instead, almost as if in a trance, the Lord of Time stood staring at his ship, his lips barely moving, his brown eyes glowed an odd shade of blue.

Jack calmed himself and listened intently. Something was going on – something beneath the surface, out of easy reach. He listened harder…

"What's happening?" John asked, interrupting Jack's concentration. Jack shook his head at him and held up a hand: _Be. Quiet._

And then Jack heard. The Doctor was speaking through the TARDIS. Or maybe, Jack thought, the two were speaking as one. But it was not only words they were speaking; it was more like music, but not just music. It was mathematics. It was logic. It was machine code. It was poetry. It was philosophy and it was religion. It was art and it was science. It was literature and it was language – millions of languages. And it was _fast – _it was at the speed of light, if not superluminal. In fact, what the TARDIS was doing was brain-dumping. Or was it The Doctor? Regardless, Jack was incredibly envious of the intended targets. To acquire such knowledge, such understanding… And to share it so intimately with The Doctor. To be linked with him in that way. Jack shook his head in wonder-tinted desire. The tall, slender man in the suit simply never failed to amaze him.

"The missiles…" if an A.I. could whisper in awe, that is what Newhope was doing, "…have changed course and are heading towards the nearest star."

If Varna hadn't been watching him, she would've missed it; she would have missed seeing him begin to waver, to falter. She would've missed the light leaving his eyes. She moved so fast that it _seemed_ she was in two places at once, and she caught him just before he crumpled to the deck.

Lost in his own thoughts, Jack _had_ missed it. "Doctor!" he yelled, eyes disbelieving as he saw a stunned Varna gently lower the Time Lord to the floor, his coat splayed out around him, its lining a sea of dark blue. Jack's face was horrorstricken as he raced to his friend's side and knelt down, wanting desperately, but so afraid of touching him: The Doctor looked so fragile, so frail, and suddenly so very small. Varna meanwhile had pressed the side of her head to The Doctor's chest, listening for a heartsbeat, for a sign of breath, for anything at all...

John was there, too – standing above them, his hand on Jack's shoulder, lightly squeezing it. "Ship," he said; his voice hard and sharp, "sick bay, now!"

With this command the group was instantaneously and with phenomenal gentleness teleported by Newhope to her medical facility.

Concurrently, the TARDIS doors slammed shut as her exterior lights went dark.


	34. Chapter 34

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYFOUR**

Rose had been keeping an eye on Ianto, waiting for an opportunity where she might be able to speak with him privately. Due to the close-knit nature of Torchwood and its employees, that was far easier said than done.

There was something bothering her… well, actually, not so much bothering as just simply preying on her mind. Generally she didn't enjoy getting involved in other people's relationships. Unlike her mum, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to be a matchmaker, Rose had accumulated a long string of failures as an advisor to the lovelorn.

Still, she saw her chance one morning as she watched Ianto putting on his coat, and she went for it.

"Where are you going?"

"On a supply run," he answered her dully as he held up a handwritten list, "do you need anything?"

"Want some company?"

Ianto examined her closely. A brief look of what might have been suspicion crossed his face before he seemed to make some sort of decision and then smile openly at her. "I'd love it! I mean, if you really want to?"

"Oh yes, I'd love it, too!" Rose giggled self-consciously, "I'm going a bit stir crazy here; I'm not used to sitting around with nothing much to do."

Ianto frowned, "Yeah, I know. And I'm sorry about that. I guess with Jack gone we're all sort of out of kilter. If you like I'm sure I could find you a project – something useful to do around the office. Would that be a good thing for you?"

Rose nodded happily in response as she grabbed her bag and coat and then followed him out the door.

It was a beautiful day. Rose peeked over Ianto's arm at the piece of paper in his hand, "So, where are we going?"

"First stop," Ianto said cheerily, looking at his list, "well, I'm sure you can guess: coffee!"

They walked to what Rose had started to think of as Wil's and her Starbucks. The two women behind the counter greeted Ianto with enthusiasm; he was obviously popular with them. And why not? Even Rose couldn't help but notice that Ianto was incredibly cute. _And_ nice. A rare combination in earthmen of his age.

"The usual?" one of the women asked him.

He nodded and smiled, "Five pounds, espresso grind." Then he looked at Rose and his smile disappeared, "That's enough to last about a week when Jack is here, when he's missing, it lasts only three or four days because it seems we're all living at the hub and surviving on caffeine."

He sighed and Rose observed the sadness in his eyes, and the weariness, too.

As she handed him his bags of coffee the woman behind the counter noticed Ianto's eyes as well. "What's the matter, love?" she asked him sympathetically.

He quickly put a smile on his face, "Oh, nothing! Just working too hard! The coffee will help. Thank you, put it on our account, right?" He dropped a couple of bills into their tip jar.

"Right you are, you take care now, you hear?" She looked at Rose with a glare somewhere in between worry and warning.

Rose smiled wanly back at her and shook her head faintly. _It's not me…_ _Not my fault._

Next up was the market, where Rose assumed possession of the coffee and Ianto filled his basket with carbs and sweets. Rose tried to get him interested in small bags of pre-cut veggies and some veggie dip, but Ianto simply shook his head. "It'll just get thrown out; I know it's pathetic, but it's true. Jack was on this health kick before he left – I think Wil turned him on to it – and he was trying to get us to eat less junk, but old habits die hard… especially when we're all stressed."

His voice caught and he looked away from her. Rose knew pain when she saw it and the man was hurting. She slipped her hand through his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze, "I'm a big believer in the benefits of chocolate, myself!"

When they left the market she still had hold of him. He seemed to like it, and so did she. "Next stop?" she asked.

"Next stop, the pet shop."

She looked at him quizzically.

"Turtle food."

"Oh, right!"

"They're voracious little beasties. Picky eaters, too. You'd never think it considering they have brains the size of, what? A sesame seed…" He laughed at his own joke. "I tried to talk Jack into getting an office cat. You know, like some libraries have a resident cat? But although I'm not positive of it, I don't think he's a cat person and, well, he worried that it might terrorize the turtles. And that the pterodactyl might terrorize the cat..."

His voice trailed off and he was silent for a block as they walked, arm in arm.

"So," Rose said trying to sound nonchalant, "you and Jack?"

Ianto's cheeks went pink but he nodded in agreement, "It's no secret, I guess."

Rose nodded back and smiled, willing him to say more, and after a moment's pause, he did.

"It's nothing serious," _she knew he was lying._

"We're just having fun," _she recognized it meant so much more to him than that._

"I know it probably won't last," _but she could tell he was hoping it would never end._

"And it's kind of hard when he disappears like this," _and she saw that Jack's disappearance was killing him._

They'd reached the pet shop and as she opened the door for him and followed him inside she squeezed her eyes shut hard in order to force the tears back.

It was clear that the situation was not as simple as she had thought and Rose now realized she was totally out of her depth. The only thing she knew for certain was that it was going to get ugly between Wil and Jack and Ianto. And she'd been wrong to tell Wil that it wouldn't. Rose feared she'd made a mess of things and felt terrible about it. God she missed The Doctor; but strangely at that very moment, she _really_ missed her mum.

Rose looked up and saw Ianto scrutinizing her with grave concern. "You okay?" he asked.

Now it was her time to turn her frown upside down. "Yeah," she said, "sorry, just thinking…"

"Well, come here, I have something, or should I say someone to show you." He smiled and pointed at a small, lonely cage back in the rear of the shop. In it was a black and white short-haired cat with green eyes, and it was looking right at Rose.


	35. Chapter 35

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYFIVE**

In fact, Jack and Varna hadn't even noticed they'd been transported until John said, "Get him on the medical crèche."

While Varna leaned back, Jack looked up, saw the crèche next to him, put his arms beneath and around The Doctor, and tenderly lifted him to the bed's surface. As always, he was startled by how light The Doctor was. By no stretch of the imagination did it seem the Time Lord's weight matched his stature. "The man has bird bones," Jack muttered to himself.

The lights on the med displays above the Doctor's head blinked to life and an I.V. bag slowly drifted down from the ceiling.

"No!" exclaimed Jack. "No medicines!"

"It is only saline," the ship argued.

"I said no," Jack growled. "Nothing like that is to be done. _Ever._ Understand?"

"Very well, sir. I will, however, need you to remove his coat and jacket."

For a moment the three stood and looked at each other dumbly. No one was ready to take the responsibility for even partially disrobing The Doctor.

"Please, sirs. The numerous objects in his clothing are interfering with the scans."

"Oh geez," exhaled Jack. He shot John an exasperated look and added, "Come on and help me, would you?"

The two men carefully removed the brown coat. Jack smoothed it painstakingly with his hands and folded it; the same coat he'd presented to The Doctor after the original disappeared not all that long ago – yet ages ago – and set it aside, but not before ordering his fingertips to memorize the feel of it. While they were taking off his jacket, The Doctor unexpectedly moaned softly. Jack handed the jacket to Varna and leaned over the Time Lord's face. He placed his palm on The Doctor's forehead, once again remarking to himself how cool his skin felt to the touch: much cooler than any other human he'd ever laid a hand on. But then, the man wasn't human, was he? It was so easy to forget, sometimes…

"Doctor?" he said in something close to a whisper. "Doctor? Can you hear me?"

There was no response.

With his free hand Jack gently covered The Doctor's right hand. It was cool, cold even, the skin smooth and soft, and the hand itself was totally limp. The Captain closed his eyes. 'He has such beautiful hands,' he thought to himself, 'so graceful and expressive. At times so delicate-looking, and yet in reality so incredibly strong.' Jack loved the way the Time Lord's hands glided and danced through the air when he spoke, illustrating his every word.

'What is it about hands?' Jack wondered, not for the first time. When he was alone, lonely, longing for The Doctor, he would often visualize the Time Lord's hands. He'd imagine his hands, his smile, his eyes… You see, Jack knows it is our hands that physically set us apart from all other animals – that allow us to pick up a pen and write, or hold a paintbrush, or play the keys of a piano, or take up a hammer and chisel, or caress a lover's body. And it was The Doctor's smile, his eyes, and his hands, which physically set him apart from _everyone_ else in the cosmos: the eyes that had observed in Jack what all the others had missed; the smile that had brought light to Jack's shadowy existence; the hands that had touched Jack's heart and soul…

He knew he was crying now, but it hardly mattered. 'Please God," he prayed silently, 'if there is a God, don't take this man from me. I'm not ready to give him up yet, or to even have him change. Dear God, I'm lucky and I am determined, but I'm not brilliant – and I _need_ brilliance in my life – I need _his_ brilliance. If you're micromanaging the universe down to the level of the two of us, God, I can't… I don't want to lose him. Please, leave him as he is and let him live.'

He tenderly gripped The Doctor's unmoving hand, lightly stroking the palm with his thumb.

It seemed like he was there for a long time, his eyes closed and his mind reaching for something that wasn't quite close enough to grasp. He heard John and Varna leave together, and still he stayed, whispering to the Time Lord, holding his hand.

He had no idea how long he stood watch over The Doctor's bed. Minutes? Hours? Days? It could have been any one of those, in any amount. And yet somehow he managed to continue standing, despite the weariness, despite the sadness, despite the fear, and despite a growing discomfort in his left knee (of course, the blasted ship had been right about his knee!). But eventually there came a time when he was disturbed from his meandering reveries; when he felt the slightest of pressures: the tiniest bit of tension in the hand he was holding. It was ephemeral at first – hardly there at all – but then it grew stronger and when Jack finally opened his eyes for the first time in what felt like ages he found himself looking straight into the eyes of The Doctor.

"Jack?" the Time Lord said.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor smiled mischievously, "Were you taking off my clothes?"

Jack smiled back, reassured. "Only in my wildest dreams."

"What happened?"

"You fainted."

"I _what_?"

"I don't know, you collapsed, you passed out."

"Passed out. I like that better than _fainted_."

Jack shook his head. "Whatever! Are you okay?"

The Doctor sat up and stretched out his back and shoulders, and then his neck, which cracked loudly.

"Think so. I'm a little hungry maybe…"

Jack grinned and impulsively kissed him on the top of his head. "God you scared me."

With an expression full of concern it appeared The Doctor was about to say something important to Jack when an entirely different thought abruptly flashed across his face and interrupted him. In one fluid movement he swung his legs out of the bed and jumped onto the floor. "Egads, Jack! What's going on?"

"I have no idea…"

"But the fleets!?"

Jack shrugged, "We're still alive, aren't we?"

"Then hurry… Allons-y! To the bridge!" he grabbed his coat and jacket off a nearby table.

"Wait, Doctor," Jack put a steady hand on The Doctor's arm, "Ship?"

"Captain, I have not discharged this patient from…"

"SHIP!"

"Aye, Captain. To the bridge."

One more time Jack felt tingly, but he couldn't quite tell if it was the transporter or if it was because The Doctor was standing next to him.


	36. Chapter 36

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYSIX**

Varna and John were hunched over one of Newhope's consoles and didn't see them beam in.

"Hello!" The Doctor announced cheerfully while he pulled on his jacket. He handed Jack his coat: he didn't need to be a Lord of Time to know what was going to happen next.

Both turned and looked up. Huge smiles broke out across their faces and Varna straightened up and raced towards him. She sang out, "You're all right?" and hesitated only a moment before enveloping him in her arms and wings.

The Doctor laughed out loud and did the best he could to hug her back – which was difficult with her wings encasing him. "I'm fine! Really! I'm sorry if I frightened you." He stepped back from Varna and looked at her closely, "I was probably tired to begin with, and the enormous difficulty involved in communicating with the fleets in that manner must've pushed me over the edge." He winked at Jack and added sheepishly, "I fell asleep. I've had a good nap and now I am quite well."

"Doctor," Jack interrupted as he helped him on with his coat, "what _was_ going on between you and the TARDIS?"

"Ah, well, my ship and I have a sort of shared consciousness, Jack. I suspect you knew that already. It ebbs and flows, but she and I, and the Newhope, by the way, needed to join forces in order to communicate with all of the fleet ships' A.I.'s simultaneously – we had to explain things to them very quickly before they blew us out of the sky, so to speak."

"And what did you tell them?" Jack asked.

"Oh! Everything."

"Everything?!"

"Yes, we simply didn't have time to pick and choose, and we decided – well, actually I decided – that we had nothing to lose by being totally open." Here The Doctor paused for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes briefly before continuing. Jack wondered if he was perhaps still very tired, or if it was something else…

"It was a risk, I know. We had to trust that the ships' A.I.'s would not misuse all that information, and that they would accept it in the spirit in which it was offered and react accordingly, as we hoped. We, well, I, wasn't totally sure that there wasn't something nefarious going on, that there wasn't something intrinsically _wrong_ with them. But both Newhope and the TARDIS believed they were rational, coherent, intact intelligences capable of making the right choice on behalf of their crews and the rest of the galaxy. If they hadn't been… well…" He glanced at Jack and then he turned his attention to John, "We had a fallback."

Jack leaned back slightly on the balls of his feet, crossed his arms over his chest and scrutinized John, "And?"

"And…" continued John, "the Newhope would've pushed out an all-points bioinformatic virus. Nothing could've stopped it. At superluminal speeds it would've instantly infected all the ships and, granted, we'd have been destroyed by the incoming missiles, but the fleets would have been obliterated as well by the virus." John smiled wanly, "Not a win-win scenario, but it would have been quite a show."

"A show we're never going to see!" the Time Lord half-shouted. "Now, tell me what's been happening since?"

Varna shimmered. "Peace has broken out! With the help of the Newhope we have been working with the ships' A.I.'s to come up with a plan for relocating their crews onto the appropriate repositioned worlds. Newhope has informed us that the displaced planets are quite safe; their orbits secure. Some of the worlds were heavily damaged in the fighting – the fleets' ships will be cannibalized, their parts used for building and reconstruction."

"There are a lot of dispossessed Maat and Oz children needing homes," John continued. "Their own worlds are long gone. Living aboard a spaceship is all they have ever known. Varna and I will work together to make sure they are placed properly and well cared for." He flashed Jack Harkness a smile and the Captain scowled back at him with narrowed eyes.

"_John?_" The irony did not escape Jack that the tone of his own voice sounded _exactly_ like The Doctor's on those numerous occasions when the Time Lord felt it needful to admonish _him_.

Captain John Hart stood, opened his arms wide and bowed gracefully. "I am nothing but a gentleman, and an honorable one at that. There are no ulterior motives here, Jack, so don't bother to go looking for them." He smiled again, and Jack thought the man looked happier than he had ever seen him. _Curious._

"Besides," John continued, "it may surprise you to learn it, but I_ like_ children, Jack. There is nowhere in the universe I'd rather be at this moment than here. This will be one job that I know I'll be happy doing."

"As will I," Varna added solemnly. "This is what we call Good Work."

"Ah! I can see I've been delegating… I _like_ delegating, and this is Good Work indeed!" cheered The Doctor, smiling at what he perceived was a happy ending and a very bright future.


	37. Chapter 37

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYSEVEN**

Varna and The Doctor retreated temporarily to the TARDIS.

But before doing so, Jack had asked him if his ship was all right.

"Yes, of course," The Doctor replied. "It also took quite a lot out of her to communicate with all those thousands of intelligences and under such duress. But she's had a good nap, and is right as rain now, too!"

Inside the TARDIS, as Varna watched, The Doctor carefully inspected the console display, making sure that his ship did not make a liar of him – ensuring that she was indeed 'right as rain'. He finally nodded and whispered, "Good, good" before turning his full attention to the Refugee standing next to him.

"Varna," he spoke softly, "what I said earlier is true: it is not within my powers to return your planet to its proper time." He smiled at her, eyes bright with the prospects that lay ahead, "But you are _most_ welcome to come traveling with me, if you like? I would love it. The myriad skies of the universe are out there waiting for us…"

Varna studied him for a long time before responding. "The Newhope has been investigating the cultures of Earth, the home planet of Jack Harkness." The Doctor was sorely tempted to correct her about the origins of the infamous Captain Jack, but he resisted the urge. "They have a saying on that planet, I'm told. It goes something like this: 'When handed lemons make lemonade.' It is a wise maxim, don't you think?" She smiled at him playfully and he burst out laughing.

"Oh yes Varna, it is a very wise saying indeed!"

She laughed, too. "My planet is intact and my people are safe. The lemons we've been handed are not too sour, and I believe that we will be able to make some very fine lemonade with them. Besides, we are here, now, and…" Varna shrugged in perfect imitation of The Doctor, "time and space are relative."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at that, but in what followed there was a touch of resignation in his voice, perhaps tinged with a little sadness. Rejection, even when expected, is always hard. "My offer is open-ended, Varna, no expiration date."

"Yes, I understand. Some day I may take you up on your tempting proposition, but for now there is work to do – Good Work – and I believe I will be quite happy doing it." She examined him and held up her hand, indicating she had more to say. She knew him very well…

"And if I'm not mistaken, Doctor, there is happiness waiting now for you as well, is there not? As a Time Lord I'm sure you know this, but maybe even you on occasion need to be reminded of it: nothing lasts forever; ending comes to all things and it gives them meaning." She cocked her head before continuing and he saw another echo of himself in her gesture. "I believe you have somewhere else you should be and someone else you should be with?"

The Doctor nodded at her thoughtfully and spoke, almost as if he was speaking just to himself. "There _is_ someone – we are like two trees that have grown together, and we simply can't disentangle. Not without risk to one or both of us."

"And this is not Jack?"

He smiled. "No, it is not Jack, although…" And here he shook his head slowly as if in amazement. "It's hard to tell, isn't it? I'm very lucky to have him in my life. Luckier than I think I realize at times. We have a strong bond, he and I, but this other – Rose, her name is Rose – the joy that I have come to find with her is, and I think will continue to be, unique in my entire existence. And you're right, Varna, our time together is finite and shouldn't be squandered. No one knows that better than a Time Lord."

He hadn't at first realized it, but tears were running down his face. 'When did this start?' he wondered in surprise. Varna went to him and lightly touched his face, perhaps for the last time, as she wiped away one of his teardrops. "Then it is quite simple isn't it?" she said. "You too have found happiness."

He looked at her and nodded, his hearts agreeing; in his mind he knew absolutely where he belonged. And the calm that he felt was like the easing of seismic stress after an earthquake. It was… fantastic.


	38. Chapter 38

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYEIGHT**

Jack and John retreated to Newhope's cafeteria. Like the rest of the ship, it was fifty percent completed and fifty percent in shambles. They'd managed to achieve a couple of cups of tea, which sat untouched on the table between them.

Jack would be leaving with The Doctor and John would stay behind with Varna to assist in the resettlement of the children. The TARDIS and the Newhope had made some sort of arrangement to ensure that John and his ship would make it back to his own time when he was ready. The idea made Jack's skin crawl – two fantastically clever and powerful machine intelligences hatching plans – it wasn't something he wanted to dwell on.

Tea, by the way, is another universal constant. Aren't you glad to know that?

For the longest time Jack didn't say anything at all. Instead he listened, and since John wasn't much inclined to talk either, the two of them just sat together in silence as their tea cooled. Like two old men on a park bench at a loss for words, overwhelmed by their world.

Finally, John shrugged. "Jack, he's nice."

"I know."

"But…?"

"But."

"True love is rare, Jack. And it's stronger than petty anger or lust. I should know. It will thrive until the last star burns cold. It's stronger than despair and that is a strong force indeed. What's a little bit of rejection, every now and then, Jack, when you're dealing with true love and you're going to live forever?"

Jack looked at him blank-faced and blinked. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."


	39. Chapter 39

**PRODIGALS**

**THIRTYNINE**

"Doctor, before we head back to Earth I have a favor to ask of you – I'd like you to take me to one of your favorite places in the universe. Just for a few minutes. Just pick one. Please? I want…" Jack was studiously not looking into the Time Lord's eyes, "I have something to say to you; I just need you to listen to me for a little while."

The Doctor said nothing but nodded solemnly and set the coordinates, all the while wondering what Jack was about. In his hearts, he feared he already knew… he feared that this was good-bye. That Jack had finally had enough of him.

And how did he feel about that? It was another pain, another loss to add to the growing list – to the myriad losses he'd accumulated throughout his lives. Another pain to add to a mountain of pain. And yet, this one was qualitatively _different, _somehow… It was going to be one of the ones that really hurt. Like when Susan left him. One of the ones that never healed. He forced himself to compartmentalize his feelings; he would have to think about them later. Sometime much, much later…

Meanwhile, it didn't take long at all to reach their destination. Ironically, the Lord of Time found himself wishing that time would slow down, that he could prolong this gentle interlude before what he expected would be a finale of so many very sad words came crashing down on him, hurting him, crushing him.

He walked to Jack and nodded at the entrance, "We're here. Let's go have a look out the doors, shall we?" His voice was quiet, a whisper, almost inaudible.

And damn if it wasn't the most stunning sight Jack's eyes had ever beheld. From roughly sixty thousand kilometers above the seething cloudtops, at a latitude about twenty degrees south of the equator, he found himself looking up at a ring structure that filled the center of his view, leaving only the edges black.

The planet itself was a striking gas giant. It had a caramel-colored atmosphere broken into subtle bands of light and dark that blended together in little swirls and ripples that were probably the size of North America. Some of the lighter bands were split by very thin ribbons of dark, snaking north to south and back again, and a few of the dark bands were home to chocolate specks and ovals that were darker still: storms, shearing and swelling.

But it was the rings that took Jack's breath away. These majestic rings were newly formed, still reveling in their original complexity. He couldn't take his eyes off them as he drank in their splendor. There were three main rings, but each was broken up into dozens and dozens of smaller rings that with their different colors and thicknesses and brightnesses seemed to have their own distinct character.

The two men stood, side-by-side for the longest time, like a couple of interstellar tourists taking in the view. Then Jack tore his gaze away from the unfathomably beautiful sight and gazed at something even more precious to him.

"I need to… I want to apologize. You know how I feel about you; I've never tried to hide it. I love you and will love you until the end of time. But the yearning… There are times when I fear I'd have you even if it cost the lives of billions. And I don't ask you to _understand_, I simply ask you to listen. It is so hard to be with you, and it's even harder when you leave me. But harder yet it would be to never see you again. I am trying my best to deal with my feelings, but progress is slow, and I occasionally have setbacks. Please forgive me for my weaknesses, and don't give up on me. You are my example, my mentor, my savior. But most of all, you are my friend. My best friend."

What would The Doctor say to that? What _could_ The Doctor say to that? Although when he began speaking Jack had appeared more anxious and worried than The Doctor had ever seen him, it seemed clear that having said his piece the Captain was now simply, blessedly and unbelievably relieved. The tension that had formerly been burdening him rolled off Jack's shoulders and became conspicuous by its very absence. Jack suddenly looked like a totally different man. He looked utterly, phenomenally dazzling.

And although it is a non sequitur to say that The Doctor is only human, it happens to be true that at that moment the Time Lord was unbelievably relieved as well, and for the very reasons detailed earlier. Listen carefully: one benefit of a long life is a large number of very large surprises, and non sequiturs notwithstanding _it was only human_ for The Doctor to be unbelievably relieved to discover that he had been totally wrong, and that this was not, after all, good-bye.

It was a _most welcome_ very large surprise.

"Jack… Jack…" There was a long pause as The Doctor gazed at Jack Harkness with love and acceptance, the merest hint of a smile gracing his Time Lord face. He found himself musing that some of Varna must've rubbed off on him; he took his time and he chose his next words carefully and spoke measuredly. "What is it that you're trying to say again?" his eyes were twinkling.

Jack smiled back, sparking blue eyes meeting the universe's most beautiful brown.

"Uh, I guess I wanted to say thank you."

"For what?"

Jack's smile grew larger. "Nothing."

"Think nothing of it. I've got plenty of that."

Now the two men were grinning at each other, and it felt like it went on for minutes. Or hours. Who knows? Maybe it did. No words, just pure pleasure in the gift of the other's presence. Jack's eyes broke away first, not that it was easy, and he turned back to the panorama outside the TARDIS.

"This is astonishing! Where are we?"

"Saturn."

Jack gasped. "You're kidding?!"

"I kid you not. Sometimes, Jack, the most wonderful things are right next to you." The Doctor turned and walked back alone to the console.

But then without looking round he paused. "I understand," the Lord of Time said, for he truly did.


	40. Chapter 40

**PRODIGALS**

**FOURTY**

The Doctor delivered Jack Harkness safely home to Torchwood. There he found the team, anxious, relieved and happy to see their Captain. But he did not find Rose.

Standing next to Jack, Wil explained, "She hung around for awhile but then said she had things to do and went back to her mum's place. She told us that when you showed up we should send you there. To the Estate."

Wil smiled impishly, as if there was some sort of inside joke that she wasn't quite able to share, although she desperately wanted to.

The Doctor pulled his left earlobe. _Oh great_.

"Okay then, I suppose I should go," he announced, leaving it half-sounding like a question in case someone else had something – anything – else to say.

No one did.

"Well… bye Jack! It's been fun!"

"Yep, let's do it again sometime." Jack smiled and then on the spur of the moment grabbed The Doctor and kissed him on both cheeks. "Be careful, okay?"

The Doctor beamed at him. "Toujours! The same goes for you, too, right?"

"Ya, sure, you betcha," Jack replied in his best _Fargo_ accent.

And so it was that The Doctor found himself back in London knocking on her door.

It opened a crack and then slammed in his face. "Rose!" he could hear Jackie screeching. "Someone's at the door for you!"

There was the sound of running footsteps and he stepped back just in time to watch the door fly open. Rose jumped into his waiting arms.

"Oh, I missed you!" she said to him.

"And I missed you, too!" He leaned back, hands on her shoulders, and spent a long moment gazing at her face, "You look good!"

"So do you!" her eyes sparkled. "Did you have any adventures while you were gone?"

He nodded, "One or two." He motioned with his head towards where the TARDIS was parked. "Come on and I'll tell you about them."

"Yeah," she said. "Perfect! I have to go fetch something first, I'll be right back." She took off down the hall and left him standing in the entrance. He could see Jackie peering at him from the kitchen, her face unreadable. He flashed a brilliant smile but she didn't respond so he stuck his hands into his coat pockets and stared down at his shoes.

A few minutes later he was still standing there examining his trainers and starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, even mortified. He was aware of Jackie's eyes glaring… burning into him… When he finally – finally! – heard Rose's footsteps he looked up with relief. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder and was carrying a box.

"Meow," the box said.

The Doctor looked down at the box, and Rose looked up at him.

"This is Spike," she explained. "He's my cat."

The Doctor sneezed.

"Come on then, let's go!" Rose exclaimed cheerily as she squeezed past him and out the door.

The Doctor turned to follow her but then remembered his manners and turned back to close the door behind them. He couldn't help but glance one more time in Jackie's direction. She was smiling radiantly at him, and she winked as he smiled back and quietly shut the door.


	41. Epilogue

**PRODIGALS**

**EPILOGUE**

After the TARDIS disappeared, Jack smiled at Wil. "There's a small ceremony I'd like to conduct on the roof. Would you care to accompany me?"

Wil nodded affirmatively and smiled back.

He helped her with her jacket and put on his own dark blue wool greatcoat. Then the two of them walked up the long spiral staircase to the rooftop. Evening had begun to fall, and although the sun was still catching the roofs of the buildings, tinting them a hard brassy gold, lights were turning on in the shadow-locked streets below. Overhead the brightest stars were coming out.

Deep from his coat pocket Jack conjured a bottle of Perrier-Jouet. "The world's most expensive champagne!" he grinned. Wil gave him an odd look but he widened his smile and motioned towards the edge of the roof. "Let's sit down, shall we?" he suggested. And so they seated themselves, with their legs dangling.

Jack studied the scene far below his feet, making sure all was clear, then extended the bottle and released it. The two of them watched as it tumbled and shattered onto the pavement below.

"I'm officially on the wagon," he proclaimed resolutely. "I thought this was the appropriate way to announce it, and to apologize to you. I treated you badly the last time I saw you, and I ask for, I hope for your forgiveness."

"You treated me badly _and_ you worried me sick, Jack. We were all worried. But I doubt that there's anything you could ever do that I wouldn't forgive, if there be forgiveness required." Her green eyes sparkled. "I would hope, though, that perhaps you'd put the kibosh on any further similarly abrupt departures? They're hard on the staff."

More and more lights were twinkling against the shadows as they turned a deep, mysterious purple. Small boats plying across the Bristol Channel were bright and colorful as Chinese lanterns.

Jack nodded and then tentatively took her hand in his.

"It's a funny thing," he said quietly, looking out over the gloaming city, "how sad moments of change can be. But the alternative for me is to live forever with no change at all. And _that_ is a kind of death – a lame and sorry one that I am determined to try to avoid."

Jack raised his other hand and cupped her face lightly, "I wonder if you would be willing to walk by my side through a few of those moments of change, maybe quite a few of them?" He gazed deeply into her eyes, questioning, wondering if she understood…

Through his fingertips he felt her nod, almost imperceptibly.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her. It was neither a chaste kiss nor the kiss of a friend, but the kiss of a lover with a promise of much more to follow and the start of something wonderful.

_Back down in the Hub, Ianto furtively looked around before he turned off the CCTV feed displaying on his monitor. His face was stricken and his eyes full of tears as he put on his coat, grabbed a few items off his desk, shoved them into his pockets, and, heartbroken, walked out the door alone into the night._

**FINIS**

"_Being is real. Becoming is an illusion."  
__Plato_

_--_

**Afterword**

_Dear faithful reader: As the Time Lord knows, nothing in this universe is ever simple. Nor is anything ever easy for poor Captain Jack Harkness. Want to find out what happens next? Well... the sequel to "Prodigals" is "Abomination"... The best is yet to come! Read on!_

_TTFN_


End file.
